above his head. 'He talks of
friends to me--talks of relations to a man whose mother died the death
in store for her son, and left him, a hungry brat, without a face he
knew in all the world! He talks of this to me!'

'Brother,' cried the hangman, whose features underwent a sudden change,
'you don't mean to say--'

'I mean to say,' Hugh interposed, 'that they hung her up at Tyburn. What
was good enough for her, is good enough for me. Let them do the like by
me as soon as they please--the sooner the better. Say no more to me. I'm
going to sleep.'

'But I want to speak to you; I want to hear more about that,' said
Dennis, changing colour.

'If you're a wise man,' growled Hugh, raising his head to look at him
with a frown, 'you'll hold your tongue. I tell you I'm going to sleep.'

Dennis venturing to say something more in spite of this caution, the
desperate fellow struck at him with all his force, and missing him, lay
down again with many muttered oaths and imprecations, and turned his
face towards the wall. After two or three ineffectual twitches at his
dress, which he was hardy enough to venture upon, notwithstanding his
dangerous humour, Mr Dennis, who burnt, for reasons of his own, to
pursue the conversation, had no alternative but to sit as patiently as
he could: waiting his further pleasure.

Chapter 75

A month has elapsed,--and we stand in the bedchamber of Sir John
Chester. Through the half-opened window, the Temple Garden looks green
and pleasant; the placid river, gay with boat and barge, and dimpled
with the plash of many an oar, sparkles in the distance; the sky is blue
and clear; and the summer air steals gently in, filling the room with
perfume. The very town, the smoky town, is radiant. High roofs and
steeple-tops, wont to look black and sullen, smile a cheerful grey;
every old gilded vane, and ball, and cross, glitters anew in the bright
morning sun; and, high among them all, St Paul's towers up, showing its
lofty crest in burnished gold.

Sir John was breakfasting in bed. His chocolate and toast stood upon a
little table at his elbow; books and newspapers lay ready to his hand,
upon the coverlet; and, sometimes pausing to glance with an air of
tranquil satisfaction round the well-ordered room, and sometimes to
gaze indolently at the summer sky, he ate, and drank, and read the news
luxuriously.

The cheerful influence of the morning seemed to have some effect, even
upon his equable tempe