ll ever
come back again--very few of them do; the hulks are not the most healthy
places in the world, and they have a pretty rough way with men who give
them trouble, as this young fellow is likely to do."

Mr. Bastow, as soon as he had given his evidence, had taken a hackney
coach to the inn where he and the Squire had put up on their arrival in
town the evening before, and here, on his return, John Thorndyke found
him. He was lying on his bed in a state of prostration.

"Cheer up, Bastow," he said, putting his hand upon the Rector's
shoulder. "The sentence is fifteen years, which was the very amount I
hoped that he would get. The more one sees of him the more hopeless
it is to expect that any change will ever take place in him; and it is
infinitely better that he should be across the sea where his conduct,
when his term is over, can affect no one. The disgrace, such as it is,
to his friends, is no greater in a long term than in a short one. Had
he got off with four or five years' imprisonment, he would have been a
perpetual trouble and a source of uneasiness, not to say alarm; and even
had he left you alone we should always have been in a state of dread as
to his next offense. Better that he should be out in the colonies than
be hung at Tyburn."

"How did he take the sentence?"

"With the same bravado he had shown all through, and as he went out of
the dock addressed a threat to me, that, under the circumstances, I can
very well afford to despise. Now, if you will take my advice, you will
drink a couple of glasses of good port, and then go to bed. I will see
to your being awakened at seven o'clock, which will give us time to
breakfast comfortably, and to make a start at nine."

"I would rather not have the wine," the Rector said feebly.

"Yes, but you must take what is good for you. I have ordered up a bottle
of the landlord's best, and must insist upon your drinking a couple of
glasses with me. I want it almost as much as you do, for the atmosphere
of that court was enough to poison a dog. I have got the taste of it in
my mouth still."

With much reluctance the Rector accompanied him to the private sitting
room that the Squire had engaged. He sat down almost mechanically in an
easy chair. The Squire poured out the wine, and handed him a glass. Mr.
Bastow at first put it to his lips without glancing at it, but he was a
connoisseur in wine, and the bouquet of the port appealing to his latent
senses, he took a s