The Trial [162]
are worth a great deal more, if they are to go to a distance.' Ah! by the bye, I suppose Cheviot has put a fresh lock on Mary's writing-case.' 'I suspect some of Mary's correspondence will devolve on me. Harry has asked me already.' 'I wished you had mentioned more about the letters of late. Leonard wanted to know more than I could tell him.' 'You don't mean that you have seen him? 0, Tom, how kind of you! Papa has been trying hard to get a day now that these first six months are up; but there are two or three cases that wanted so much watching that he has not been able to stir.' 'I know how he lets himself be made a prisoner, and that it was a chance whether any one saw the poor fellow at all.' 'I am so glad'--and Ethel turned on him a face still flushed, but now with gratitude. 'How was he looking?' 'The costume is not becoming, and he has lost colour and grown hollow-eyed; but I saw no reason for being uneasy about him; he looked clear and in health, and has not got to slouch yet. It is shocking to see such a grand face and head behind a grating.' 'Could he talk'? 'Why, the presence of a warder is against conversation, and six months of shoe-making in a cell does not give much range of ideas. There was nothing to be done but to talk on right ahead and judge by his eyes if he liked it.' 'I suppose you could find out nothing about himself?' 'He said he got on very well; but one does not know that means. I asked if he got books; and he said there was a very good library, and he could get what gave him something to think of; and he says they give interesting lectures in school.' 'You could not gather what is thought of him?' 'No; I saw but a couple of officers of the place, and could only get out of them "good health and good conduct." I do not expect even his conduct makes much impression as to his innocence, for I saw it stated the other day that the worst prisoners are those that are always getting convicted for petty offences; those that have committed one great crime are not so depraved, and are much more amenable. However, he has only three months more at Pentonville, and then be will go to Portland, Chatham, or Gibraltar.' 'Oh, I hope it will not be Gibraltar! But at least that terrible solitude will be over.' 'At any rate, his spirit is not broken. I could see his eye light up after I had talked a little while, and he fell into his natural tone again. He would not try to put out his hand to me when he came down; but when I went away, he put it through and we had a good hearty shake. Somehow it made one feel quite small.' Ethel could have pledged herself for the soundness of Tom's nature after those words; but all she did was in an unwonted tone to utter the unwonted exclamation--'Dear Tom.' 'If my father does not come up, I shall see him once more before he leaves Pentonville,' added Tom; 'and so you must mind and let me know all about his people in America. I found he had no notion of the row that is beginning there, so I said not a word of it. But what is all this about going to Indiana?' 'They are going at the end of April to settle in a place called Massissauga, where Henry is to farm till practice comes to him. It is towards the north of the State, in the county of Pulaski.' 'Ay, in one of the pestilential swamps that run up out of Lake Michigan. All the fertile ground there breeds as many fevers and agues as it does stalks of corn.' 'Indeed! how did you hear that?' 'I looked up the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky a location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched on. Some friend Leonard spoke of--a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to make a prey of them.' 'The father of their young lady friend at the boarding-house.' 'Oh! a Yankee edition of Mrs. Pugh!' 'And the worst of it is that this is to be done with poor Averil's fortune. She has written to Mr. Bramshaw to sell out for her, and send her the amount, and he is terribly vexed; but she is of age, and there are no trustees nor any one to stop it.' 'All of a piece,' muttered Tom; then presently he swung the basket