nts on the part of
Borrow is to be found in the fact that, as he admits, he was quite a boy
when he saw Norman Cross barracks. His father was an officer in one of
the regiments on guard there (and they were constantly changing), and his
account was written years afterwards, when it was not likely he would
remember accurately what he had heard and seen so long ago. Indeed, he
acknowledges as much when he begins his account by the ominous words, "If
I remember right,"--which he certainly did not.

No. The unfortunate prisoners of Norman Cross were not petted, neither
were they uncared for. They were treated as prisoners of war, not as
criminals; and were not employed (as English prisoners were in France,)
in public and other works. They had, poor fellows, a heavy lot to bear,
but it is an abominable falsehood to say that it was aggravated by any
needless severity on the part of the English Government.

CHAPTER III.--A FRIEND IN NEED.

It was not long before Captain Tournier was allowed to go out on parole,
and that too with considerable latitude both as to distance and length of
absence. Major Kelly, the Commandant, and Captain Mortimer, the
Admiralty agent, had had some talk together about the matter, and were
not quite in agreement on the subject.

"We shall have some trouble with that fellow Tournier. He keeps himself
aloof from the others, and takes no part in their amusements, and goes
mooning about as if he had got mischief brewing."

"Have you ever found him uncivil or disobedient to orders?" enquired the
major.

"Oh, not in the least; he conducts himself quite like a gentleman. But I
have always found your silent, moody man the most likely one to try and
blow up the ship."

Captain Mortimer was an honest, open-hearted sailor, inclined to be a
martinet, but with very little power to discriminate character and (like
a great many other people in the world,) without painstaking sympathy, as
the prisoners found to their cost in many ways, though they did not know
exactly how it was. Major Kelly, on the contrary, did not judge after
the outward appearance, but detected something in Tournier's profound
melancholy which he could not understand indeed, but which his heart
revolted from setting down uncharitably to evil.

So as his authority was supreme in such a matter as granting parole to a
prisoner, the agent having charge only (but it was a most important one,)
of the Commissariat and Transpor