r
the poor young gentleman. It's a thousand pities he's thrown himself
away, for a nicer or freer-spoken gentleman never was, when he was in
his proper senses. There, Mr Poole, there's your bag. You see it's
just as you gave it me. No one has seen it or touched it but myself."

"Thank you, Mrs Jones. It's all right; farewell, and the Lord be with
us both."

He turned from the door utterly broken down in spirit. Whither should
he go? What should he do? Should he really abandon his master to his
fate? He could not. Should he delay posting the letter? No; and yet
he felt a difficulty about it; for Frank had stated in his letter to
himself that he had told his mother of the robbery, and that Jacob must
be repaid his loss. But who was to say what was the worth of the
nuggets? He had never ascertained their value. He felt that he could
not face his master's father; that he could not himself put a value upon
what he had lost. His master had saved his life, and he would set that
against the pilfered gold, and would forgive what had been done against
himself. So having ascertained that it was only too true that his bag
contained but two or three little pieces of the precious metal, he cast
the rest of its contents into the sea, and determined to start afresh in
life, as if the sorrowful part of his past history never had been. But
first he posted Frank's letter, with one of his own, in which he stated
where he had lodged in Liverpool, that so his master's parents might
have every opportunity of endeavouring to trace their unhappy son. His
own letter was as follows:--

"MADAM,--Mr Frank Oldfield, your son, has bid me send you the letter
from him which comes with this. Mr Frank is my master. You have no
doubt heard him say something in his letters from Australia about
Jacob Poole. Well, I am Jacob Poole. And we came to England
together, my master and me; and my master has took, I am sorry to say
it, to drinking again since he came back. I wanted him to go home at
once, but he has kept putting it off, and he has got into the hands of
some gamblers as has stripped him of all his brass; and he has taken,
too, some nuggets of mine, which I got at the diggings, but he didn't
mean to keep them, only to borrow them, and pay me back. But, poor
young gentleman, he has been quite ruinated by these cheating chaps as
has got hold of him. So I don't want anybody to think anything more
about