r. "You are required to give evidence at a trial. At two o'clock
you leave Portland for Cumberland, and your guard goes with you."

The convict bent his head and went out in silence.

CHAPTER XV.

Paul Ritson--let him be known by his official number no more--was not
taken to the punishment cells. He was set to work with the
stone-dressing gang stationed near the gate of the prison. The news of
his attempt to escape had not spread more rapidly than rumors of his
approaching departure.

"I say," shouted a hoary convict, "take a crooked message out?"

"What's your message?"

"On'y a word to the old girl telling her where she'll find a bunch of
keys as she wants partic'lar."

"Write her yourself, my man."

"What, and the governor read it, and me get a bashing, and the crushers
pinch the old moll? Well, I am surprised at ye; but I forgot, you're a
straight man, you are."

A mocking laugh followed this explanatory speech.

A young fellow with a pale, meek face and the startled eyes of a hare
crept close up to where Paul Ritson worked, and took a letter out of one
of his boots.

"This is the last I had from home," he said, quietly, and put the letter
into Paul's hands.

It was a soiled and crumpled paper, so greasy from frequent handlings
and so much worn by many foldings that the writing could scarcely be
deciphered. Home? It was dated from the Union of Liverpool, and had come
from his invalid wife and his children, all living there.

The poor fellow could not read, but he had somehow learned the letter
by heart, and was able to point out each bit of family history in the
exact place where it was recorded.

He had lost his class privileges, and was not allowed to reply; and now
he wanted to know if Paul Ritson could get down to Liverpool and see his
wife and little ones, and tell them how well he was, and how lusty he
looked, and what fine times he had of it--"just to keep up their
spirits, you know."

"I say, you sir," bawled a sinister gray-head--the same whose
conversation was overheard in church--"I hear as you're a employer of
labor when yer not lagged. Any chance? I wants to leave my sitivation.
Long hours, and grub reg'lar onsatisfactory. Besides, my present
employer insists on me wearing a collar with a number--same as a wild
beast or a bobby. It's gettin' ridic'lus. So I've give notice, and I
flit in September. Maybe ye see as I'm growing my wings to fly." The
hoary sinner pointed upward t