niture may be fixed?"

"Yes; and of all the other things: of the estates as well, for instance;
there may be some land that may prove a good investment. Don't make a
fuss about it, but say you have a friend who is interested. The
catalogue of effects, with the dates appointed for the sale of each,
will, of course, be settled down there. I want to have an early copy."

"That is very simple," said Mrs. Basil, making a memorandum in her
pocket-book: "you shall be among the very first to get one, Mr. Coe--you
may rely on that."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

OVER THE ROOF.

Richard Yorke is still at Lingmoor; and though but a twelvemonth
intervenes between him and freedom--or perhaps partly because of
it--prison life is growing insupportable. It is the last year of "a long
term," as all "old hands" will tell you, which is the most trying.
Impatience becomes more incontrollable as the limit of suffering is
neared; and just as, after a tedious and dangerous illness, the
convalescent will rise too soon, and risk a relapse in his feverish
desire to be well, so a prisoner will often make some wild endeavors to
escape, when, if he did but wait a little--a span of time compared with
that in which he has lain captive--his jealous doors would open of
themselves to let him pass in safety. But there are other reasons which
are pressing Richard toward flight, and goading him (as he feels) to
madness if he remain quiescent. He has quarreled with all about him, and
has suffered for it; and he is now menaced with worse things. His
sullenness, his brooding ire, have long transformed his nature;
civility, and even obedience, have become impossible for him. He kicks,
as it were, against a chevaux-de-frise of steel. He has been starved on
bread and water, and grown thin and fierce. He has been put, and not for
nothing, into the dark cell for hours, to brood, as usual, and has come
forth a more reckless devil than he went in.

His warder and he are open foes. That cross-grained official has taken a
strong antipathy to him, which is more than reciprocated; and every,
time he enters his cell sets foot, though unconscious of the fact, on
the very threshold of the grave. He is the keeper of one who is almost a
madman; but the latter is sane on one point yet--he knows to whom his
vengeance is mainly due; and while that knowledge lasts his lesser foe
is safe from him--safe, that is, at present; but a provocation may be
given which would compel th