n the life
he now led. It was indeed an existence full of misery and suffering. To
exaggerate the danger of his position, his companions asserted that the
greatest efforts were making for his capture, rewards offered, and spies
scattered far and wide through the country; and while they agreed with
him that nothing could be laid to his charge, they still insisted, that
were he once taken, false-swearing and perjury would bring him to the
gallows, "as it did many a brave boy before him."

Half-starved, and harassed by incessant change of place; tortured by the
fevered agony of a mind halting between a deep purpose of vengeance and
a conscious sense of innocence, his own daily sufferings soon brought
down his mind to that sluggish state of gloomy desperation, in which the
very instincts of our better nature seem dulled and blunted. "I cannot
be worse!" was his constant expression, as he wandered alone by some
unfrequented mountain-path, or along the verge of some lonely ravine.
"I cannot be worse!" It is an evil moment that suggests a thought like
this!

Each night he was accustomed to repair to the old churchyard, where some
of the "boys," as they called themselves, assembled to deliberate on
future measures, or talk over the past. It was less in sympathy
with their plans that Owen came, than for the very want of human
companionship. His utter solitude gave him a longing to hear their
voices, and see their faces; while in their recitals of outrage, he
felt that strange pleasure the sense of injury supplies, at any tale of
sorrow and suffering.

At these meetings the whisky-bottle was never forgotten; and while some
were under a pledge not to take more than a certain quantity--a vow they
kept most religiously--others drank deeply. Among these was Owen. The
few moments of reckless forgetfulness he then enjoyed were the coveted
minutes of his long dreary day, and he wished for night to come as the
last solace that was left him.

His companions knew him too well, to endeavour by any active influence
to implicate him in their proceedings. They cunningly left the work to
time and his own gloomy thoughts; watching, however, with eager anxiety,
how, gradually he became more and more interested in all their doings;
how, by degrees he ceased even the half-remonstrance against some deed
of unnecessary cruelty; and listened with animation where before he but
heard with apathy, if not repugnance. The weeds of evil grow rankest in