profit by remembering my past errors, and to
treat my next benefactress with more
confidence than I had treated her.

My first business in the prison was to
write to Mr. Batterbury. I had a
magnificent case to present to him, this time.
Although I believed myself, and had
succeeded in persuading Laura, that I was sure
of being recommended to mercy; it was not
the less the fact, that I was charged with an
offence still punishable by death, in the then
barbarous state of the law. I delicately stated
just enough of my case to make it vividly
clear to the mind of Mr. Batterbury, that
my affectionate sister's interest in the contingent
reversion was now (unless Lady Malkinshaw
perversely and suddenly expired) actually
threatened by the Gallows! While
calmly awaiting the answer, I was by no
means without subjects to occupy my attention
when Laura was not at the prison.
There was my fellow-workman—Mill—
(the first member of our society betrayed
by Screw) to compare notes with; and there
was a certain prisoner, who had been
transported, and who had some very important
and interesting particulars to communicate,
relative to life and its chances in our felon-
settlements at the Antipodes. I talked a
great deal with this man; for I felt that his
experience might be of the greatest possible
benefit to me.

Mr. Batterbury's answer was speedy, short,
and punctual. I had shattered his nervous
system for ever, he wrote, but had only
stimulated his devotion to my family, and his
Christian readiness to look pityingly on my
transgressions. He had engaged the leader of
the circuit to defend me; and he would have
come to see me, but for Mrs. Batterbury; who
had implored him not to expose himself to
agitation. Of Lady Malkinshaw the letter
said nothing; but I afterwards discovered
that she was then at Cheltenham, drinking
the waters and playing whist in the rudest
health and spirits.

It is a bold thing to say, but nothing
will ever persuade me that Society has not
a sneaking kindness for a Rogue. My father
never had half the attention shown to
him in his own house, which was shown to
me in my prison. I have seen High Sheriffs,
in the great world, whom my father went
to see, give him two fingers—the High
Sheriff of Barkinghamshire, came to see me,
and shook hands cordially. Nobody ever
wanted my father's autograph—dozens of
people asked for mine. Nobody ever put my
father's portrait in the frontispiece of a magazine,
or described his personal appearance
and manners with anxious elaboration, in the
large type of a great newspaper—I enjoyed
both these honours. Three official individuals
politely begged me to be sure and make
complaints if my position was not perfectly
comfortable. No official individual ever troubled
his head whether my father was comfortable
or not. When the day of my trial came, the
court was thronged by my lovely country-
women, who stood up panting in the crowd
and crushing their beautiful dresses, rather
than miss the pleasure of seeing the dear
Rogue in the dock. When my father once
stood on the lecturer's rostrum, and delivered
his excellent discourse, called Medical Hints
to Maids and Mothers on Tight Lacing and
Teething, the benches were left empty by the
ungrateful women of England; who were not
in the slightest degree anxious to feast their
eyes on the sight of a learned adviser and
respectable man. If these facts led to one
inevitable conclusion, it is not my fault. We
Rogues are the spoilt children of Society. We
may not be openly acknowledged as Pets, but
we all know, by pleasant experience, that
we are treated like them.

The trial was deeply affecting. My defence
—or rather my barrister's—was the simple
truth. It was impossible to overthrow the
facts against us; so we honestly owned that
I got into the scrape through love for Laura.
My counsel turned this to the best possible
sentimental account. He cried; the ladies
cried; the jury cried; the judge cried; and
Mr. Batterbury, who had desperately come
to see the trial, and know the worst on the
spot, sobbed with such prominent vehemence,
that I believe him, to this day, to have
greatly influenced the verdict. I was strongly
recommended to mercy, and got off with fourteen
years' transportation. The unfortunate
Mill, who was tried after me, with a mere
dry-eyed barrister to defend him, was hanged.

With the record of my sentence of
transportation, my life as a Rogue ends, and my
existence as a respectable man begins. I am
sorry to say anything which may offend
popular delusions on the subject of poetical
justice, but this is strictly the truth.

My first anxiety was about my wife's
future. Mr. Batterbury gave me no chance
of asking his advice after the trial. The
moment sentence had been pronounced, he
allowed himself to be helped out of court in a
melancholy state of prostration, and the next
morning he left for London. I suspect he
was afraid to face me, and nervously
impatient, besides, to tell Annabella that he had
saved the legacy again by another alarming
sacrifice. My father and mother, to whom I
had written on the subject of Laura, were no
more to be depended on than Mr. Batterbury.
My father, in answering my letter, told me
that he conscientiously believed he had done
enough in forgiving me for throwing away an
excellent education, and disgracing a respectable
name. He added that he had not allowed
my letter for my mother to reach her, out of
pitying regard for her broken health and
spirits; and he ended by telling me (what
was perhaps very true) that the wife of such
a son as I had been, had no claim upon her
father-in-law's protection and help. There
was an end, then, of any hope of finding