I

IN WHICH GEORGE HAWKER SETTLES AN OLD SCORE WITH WILLIAM LEE, MOST
HANDSOMELY, LEAVING, IN FACT, A LARGE BALANCE IN HIS OWN FAVOUR.

I pause here--I rather dread to go on. Although our course has been
erratic and irregular; although we have had one character disappearing
for a long time (like Tom Troubridge); and, although we have had
another entirely new coming bobbing up in the manner of Punch's
victims, unexpected, and apparently unwanted; although, I say, the
course of this story may have been ill-arranged in the highest degree,
and you may have been continually coming across some one in Vol. II.
who forced you to go back to Vol. I. (possibly sent back to the
library) to find out who he was; yet, on the whole, we have got on
pleasantly enough as things go. Now, I am sorry to say I have to record
two or three fearful catastrophes. The events of the next month are
seldom alluded to by any of those persons mentioned in the preceding
pages; they are too painful. I remark that the Lucknow and Cawnpore men
don't much like talking about the affairs of that terrible six weeks;
much for the same reason, I suspect, as we, going over our old
recollections, always omit the occurrences of this lamentable spring.

The facts contained in the latter end of this chapter I got from the
Gaol Chaplain at Sydney.

The Major, the Captain, and I, got home to dinner, confirmed in our
suspicions that mischief was abroad, and very vexed at having missed
the man we went in search of. Both Mrs. Buckley and Alice noticed that
something was wrong, but neither spoke a word on the subject. Mrs.
Buckley now and then looked anxiously at her husband, and Alice cast
furtive glances at her father. The rest took no notice of our silence
and uneasiness, little dreaming of the awful cloud that was hanging
above our heads, to burst, alas! so soon.

I was sitting next to Mary Hawker that evening, talking over old Devon
days and Devon people, when she said,--

"I think I am going to have some more quiet peaceful times. I am
happier than I have been for many years. Do you know why? Look there."

"I shuddered to hear her say so, knowing what I knew, but looked where
she pointed. Her son sat opposite to us, next to the pretty Ellen
Mayford. She had dropped the lids over her eyes and was smiling. He,
with his face turned toward her, was whispering in his eager impulsive
way, and tearing to pieces a slip of paper which he held in his hand.
As the fir