's desolation and despair.

Then he remembered the outcome of that despair: the unhappy youth in
the parable suddenly determined to arise and go to his father, to
confess, with bitter remorse, his own mad wrong-doings. Would it not
be well for himself to arise and return to Northbourne, and to confess
the terrible folly of which he and Alick had been guilty? Again and
again Ned imagined himself so doing. But the cruel whip which he had
already tasted was another side to the question. No, he dare not again
attempt to escape! He writhed still when he recollected the stinging
lashes of the long, serpent-like whip. At last came an inspiration.
He could, and he would, write to the captain at the Bunk, entreating
him to come and rescue his son, and also Ned himself. This resolve,
however, was a work of no small difficulty. To procure an envelope and
a postage-stamp were next door to impossible for the lad who was
watched so keenly. Fortunately, some body coming out of the
performance one evening, in pity for his unhappy looks, threw Ned a
penny. A day or so after, when sweeping out the ring, he found in the
sawdust an envelope unwritten upon, and tolerably clean. It was a
prize: and that evening, when the public were shrieking with laughter
over the capers of a clown arm-in-arm with a tame bear, followed by a
couple of monkeys skilfully mimicking their very strut, Ned was behind
one of the vans scribbling with pencil a few frantic, ill-spelt words
that, when the crumpled envelope arrived at the Bunk, were wept over
and laughed over in tumultuous joy. The penny thrown him went for a
stamp; the letter was pushed, with trembling haste, into a letter-box,
and Ned had returned to his post among the squalid back-scenes of the
gay performance before anybody had time to miss him.

His heart beat in mad throbs, so that the boy was scarce able to sleep
a wink that night. Hopes and fears jostled themselves in his excited
brain. If the postman, old 'Uncle Dan,' who trudged from Brattlesby
town every day at noon with the Northbourne post-bag, only safely
delivered the letter Ned had posted, all would be well. With the
captain himself to the fore, every difficulty must, and would, be swept
away. Then---- But with a sobbing catch in his breath Ned put aside
the after. He was too weak from misery and ill-usage to finish the
blissful result. So, over and over, he murmured, 'I have sinned
against heaven and before thee!' un