s he not
always rolling the stone of Sysiphus, gyrating on the wheel of Ixion,
hankering after the waters of Tantalus, filling the sieves of the
daughters of Danaus? He pours into his sieve stolen corn beyond
measure, but no grain will stay there. He lifts to his lips rich
cups, but Rhadamanthus the policeman allows him no moment for a
draught. The wheel of justice is ever going, while his poor hanging
head is in a whirl. The stone which he rolls never perches for a
moment at the top of the hill, for the trade which he follows admits
of no rest. Have I not said truly that he is hunted like a fox,
driven from covert to covert with his poor empty craving belly?
prowling about through the wet night, he returns with his prey, and
finds that he is shut out from his lair; his bloodshot eye is ever
over his shoulder, and his advanced foot is ever ready for a start;
he stinks in the nostrils of the hounds of the law, and is held by
all men to be vermin.

One would say that the rascal, if he but knew the truth, would
look forward to Spike Island and the Bermudas with impatience and
raptures. The cold, hungry, friendless, solitary doom of unconvicted
rascaldom has ever seemed to me to be the most wretched phase of
human existence,--that phase of living in which the liver can trust
no one, and be trusted by none; in which the heart is ever quailing
at the policeman's hat, and the eye ever shrinking from the
policeman's gaze. The convict does trust his gaoler, at any rate his
master gaoler, and in so doing is not all wretched. It is Bill Sikes
before conviction that I have ever pitied. Any man can endure to be
hanged; but how can any man have taken that Bill Sikes' walk and have
lived through it?

To such punishments will we leave the Molletts, hoping of the elder
one, that under the care of those ministering angels in Spinny Lane,
his heart may yet be softened; hoping also for the younger one that
some ministering angel may be appointed also for his aid. 'Tis a
grievous piece of work though, that of a ministering angel to such a
soul as his. And now, having seen them so far on their mortal career,
we will take our leave of both of them.

Mr. Prendergast's object in sparing them was of course that of saving
Lady Fitzgerald from the terrible pain of having her name brought
forward at any trial. She never spoke of this, even to Herbert,
allowing those in whom she trusted to manage those things for her
without an expression of an