f intelligence would arrive the sooner for his
hurrying--and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation
rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! His mother, the only parent
he had ever known, lay ill--it might be, dying--within one mile of the
ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would
place him by her side. He rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron
rails with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and
threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through
the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he
beat his hands together and wept like a child.

'I bore the mother's forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison;
and I carried the solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent
supplication for pardon, to her sick-bed. I heard, with pity and
compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her
comfort and support when he returned; but I knew that many months before
he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no longer
of this world. 'He was removed by night. A few weeks afterwards the poor
woman's soul took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe,
to a place of eternal happiness and rest. I performed the burial service
over her remains. She lies in our little churchyard. There is no stone
at her grave's head. Her sorrows were known to man; her virtues to God.
'it had been arranged previously to the convict's departure, that he
should write to his mother as soon as he could obtain permission, and
that the letter should be addressed to me. The father had positively
refused to see his son from the moment of his apprehension; and it was
a matter of indifference to him whether he lived or died. Many years
passed over without any intelligence of him; and when more than half
his term of transportation had expired, and I had received no letter, I
concluded him to be dead, as, indeed, I almost hoped he might be.

'Edmunds, however, had been sent a considerable distance up the country
on his arrival at the settlement; and to this circumstance, perhaps,
may be attributed the fact, that though several letters were despatched,
none of them ever reached my hands. He remained in the same place
during the whole fourteen years. At the expiration of the term, steadily
adhering to his old resolution and the pledge he gave his mother,
he made his way back to England amidst innumerable difficultie