me runs in my ears like a chime of bells. But it's
all mere bosh I've been reading these long six months I've been chained
up here--after I was committed for trial. When I came out of the
hospital after curing me of that wound--for I was hit bad by that black
tracker--they gave me some books to read for fear I'd go mad and cheat
the hangman. I was always fond of reading, and many a night I've read to
poor old mother and Aileen before I left the old place. I was that weak
and low, after I took the turn, and I felt glad to get a book to take
me away from sitting, staring, and blinking at nothing by the hour
together. It was all very well then; I was too weak to think much. But
when I began to get well again I kept always coming across something in
the book that made me groan or cry out, as if some one had stuck a knife
in me. A dark chap did once--through the ribs--it didn't feel so bad, a
little sharpish at first; why didn't he aim a bit higher? He never was
no good, even at that. As I was saying, there'd be something about a
horse, or the country, or the spring weather--it's just coming in now,
and the Indian corn's shooting after the rain, and I'LL never see it; or
they'd put in a bit about the cows walking through the river in the hot
summer afternoons; or they'd go describing about a girl, until I began
to think of sister Aileen again; then I'd run my head against the wall,
or do something like a madman, and they'd stop the books for a week; and
I'd be as miserable as a bandicoot, worse and worse a lot, with all
the devil's tricks and bad thoughts in my head, and nothing to put them
away.

I must either kill myself, or get something to fill up my time till
the day--yes, the day comes. I've always been a middling writer, tho' I
can't say much for the grammar, and spelling, and that, but I'll put it
all down, from the beginning to the end, and maybe it'll save some other
unfortunate young chap from pulling back like a colt when he's first
roped, setting himself against everything in the way of proper breaking,
making a fool of himself generally, and choking himself down, as I've
done.

The gaoler--he looks hard--he has to do that, there's more than one
or two within here that would have him by the throat, with his heart's
blood running, in half a minute, if they had their way, and the warder
was off guard. He knows that very well. But he's not a bad-hearted chap.

'You can have books, or paper and pens, anything you