a youth, whose
friendship they had seen so touchingly claimed by a son of one of the
most highly respected gentlemen in the county, were evincing the
propensities that lead to the perpetration of deeds of darkness.'

Tom patted Aubrey on the shoulder; and Aubrey, though muttering
'humbug,' was by some degrees less wretched.

'Men did not change their nature on a sudden,' the counsel continued;
'and where was the probability that a youth of character entirely
unblemished, and of a disposition particularly humane and generous,
should at once rush into a crime of the deep and deadly description, to
which a long course of dissipation, leading to perplexity, distress,
and despair, would be the only inducement?'

He then went on to speak of Leonard's position at the mill, as junior
clerk. He had been there for six months, without a flaw being
detected, either in his integrity, his diligence, or his regularity;
indeed, it was evident that he had been gradually acquiring a greater
degree of esteem and confidence than he had at first enjoyed, and had
been latterly more employed by his uncle. That a young man of superior
education should find the daily drudgery tedious and distasteful, and
that one of sensitive honour should be startled at the ordinary, he
might almost say proverbial, customs of the miller's trade, was
surprising to no one; and that he should unbosom himself to a friend of
his own age, and indulge together with him in romantic visions of
adventure, was, to all who remembered their own boyhood, an
illustration of the freshness and ingenuousness of the character that
thus unfolded itself. Where there were day-dreams, there was no room
for plots of crime.

Then ensued a species of apology for the necessity of entering into
particulars that did not redound to the credit of a gentleman, who had
appeared before the court under such distressing circumstances as Mr.
Samuel Axworthy; but it was needful that the condition of the family
should be well understood, in order to comprehend the unhappy train of
events which had conducted the prisoner into his present situation. He
then went through what had been traceable through the evidence--that
Samuel Axworthy was a man of expensive habits, and accustomed to drain
his uncle's resources to supply his own needs; showing how the sum,
which had been intrusted to the prisoner, to be paid into the local
bank, had been drawn out by the elder nephew as soon as he became awar