malice, squire, in every line of it."

"I'm afraid it's a bad letter," the squire assented gravely.

"It's a natural letter," Mr. Wilks said savagely. "It is written in a
hurry, and he's had no time to pick and choose his words, and round off
his sentences, as he generally does in his letters to you. He was so
full of malicious exultation that he did not think how much he was
showing his feeling, as he wrote."

"It's a bad letter and a nasty letter," the squire assented; "but let
that pass, now. The first question is--How are we to tell Jim's mother?
Do you think it will be a relief to her, or otherwise?"

"It will be a blow to know that the lugger has been captured," Mr.
Wilks said--"a severe blow, no doubt, for her escape is what we have
been building our hopes upon. It will be a heavy blow, too, for her to
know that James is a seaman before the mast; that it will be years
before she will see him again, and that all her plans for his future
are upset. But I think this will be much better for her than if she
knew he was a prisoner, and would have to stand a trial.

"Between ourselves, squire, as far as the lad himself is concerned, I
am not sure that he will be altogether sorry that events have turned
out as they have. In our talks together, he has often confided to me
that his own inclinations were altogether for a life of activity and
adventure; but that, as his mother's heart was so set upon his
following his father's profession, he had resolved upon never saying a
word, to her, which would lead her to suppose that his own wishes lay
in any other direction. This business will give him the opportunity he
has longed for, to see the world, without his appearing in any way to
thwart his mother's plans."

"At any rate," the squire said, "I am heartily glad he has got off
being tried. Even if I had got a free pardon for him, it would have
been a serious slur upon him that he had been imprisoned, and would
have been awkward for us all in the future. I think, Wilks, I will
leave it to you to break it to his mother."

"Very well," the other agreed. "It is an unpleasant business, squire;
but perhaps I had better do it. It may console her if I tell her that,
at heart, he always wanted to go to sea, and that, accustomed as he is
to knock about in the fishermen's boats, he will find it no hardship on
board a man o' war, and will come back, in the course of two or three
years, none the worse for his cruise. She may think h