walked slowly on. He had forgotten him.

'He walked down the hill, and through the village. The weather was warm,
and the people were sitting at their doors, or strolling in their little
gardens as he passed, enjoying the serenity of the evening, and their
rest from labour. Many a look was turned towards him, and many a
doubtful glance he cast on either side to see whether any knew and
shunned him. There were strange faces in almost every house; in some he
recognised the burly form of some old schoolfellow--a boy when he last
saw him--surrounded by a troop of merry children; in others he saw,
seated in an easy-chair at a cottage door, a feeble and infirm old man,
whom he only remembered as a hale and hearty labourer; but they had all
forgotten him, and he passed on unknown.

'The last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth, casting
a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the shadows of
the orchard trees, as he stood before the old house--the home of his
infancy--to which his heart had yearned with an intensity of affection
not to be described, through long and weary years of captivity and
sorrow. The paling was low, though he well remembered the time that it
had seemed a high wall to him; and he looked over into the old garden.
There were more seeds and gayer flowers than there used to be, but
there were the old trees still--the very tree under which he had lain a
thousand times when tired of playing in the sun, and felt the soft, mild
sleep of happy boyhood steal gently upon him. There were voices within
the house. He listened, but they fell strangely upon his ear; he knew
them not. They were merry too; and he well knew that his poor old mother
could not be cheerful, and he away. The door opened, and a group of
little children bounded out, shouting and romping. The father, with a
little boy in his arms, appeared at the door, and they crowded round
him, clapping their tiny hands, and dragging him out, to join their
joyous sports. The convict thought on the many times he had shrunk from
his father's sight in that very place. He remembered how often he had
buried his trembling head beneath the bedclothes, and heard the harsh
word, and the hard stripe, and his mother's wailing; and though the
man sobbed aloud with agony of mind as he left the spot, his fist was
clenched, and his teeth were set, in a fierce and deadly passion.

'And such was the return to which he had looked through the weary