ing on him. I know enough about him to bring me in a tidy income. So he is dead. Well, no loss, except to me. He was a worthless young scoundrel.”

"He was nothing of the kind," said Austin. "He was half-witted, but he was neither worthless nor a scoundrel. How dare you speak so of Miss Hilton's brother? He stole things. He was half-witted, I tell you. What have you done that you are here? I'll tell you what, little Bob Hilton, poor little devil, was in some respects immeasurably your superior. Come now."

This was, do you perceive, the way in which Austin carried out his plan of elevating the moral tone of the convicts around him, by talking about Shakespeare and the musical glasses.

CHAPTER XIV.

AUSTIN grew to like this young convict. He had, it appears, behaved pretty well, and was a somewhat privileged person. When Gil was not with him, Austin used to walk a great deal with this young fellow, Charlton. Gil was glad at Austin's having found some one in the prison of whom he could make some sort of a companion; he wondered at Austin's choice, but respectfully acquiesced. He did not like Charlton, but that was his fault, of course, for Austin must be right. Austin's heroic nature, thought Gil, though in other words, could not err: so he accepted Charlton.

The fact was that Austin, so far from having become less heroic in Gil's eyes, since his misfortune, had become infinitely more so. When he had found his hero in misfortune and disgrace, his hero worship only

grew the stronger for those circumstances. Pity, was in his thoroughly chivalrous mind, superadded to his old admiration, and made his love for Austin only stronger. But when Austin grew well enough to tell him the whole story, his admiration grew into a sort of barbarous reverence, combined with self-congratulation, at his having been shrewd enough to have picked out Austin, as the very man to follow to the death.

The fact of Lord Charles Barty having succeeded in thrusting himself forward into the quarrel before Austin, was certainly a distressing accident-but Austin's hunt after Captain Hertford, his wandering hither and thither after him, with the dread of his trial hanging over him all the time, his patient search after him, the cunning he displayed in it, his calm behaviour when he brought the wolf to bay, and his noble generosity in refusing to fire at him after all— formed, in Gil's Highland imagination, the most beautiful and glorious tale he had ever heard. I suppose that it is true, that heroic natures are apt to worship an idol which they suppose to possess the qualities they most admire themselves. Faithful, high-souled valour, were the qualities for which Austin was getting worshipped, and his worshipper

was showing those qualities, to a higher degree than ever had Austin.

Gil had made friends with the apprentices. They were two good-hearted, ordinary, English lads, who were not so much learning their trade, as having the details of their trade knocked, so to speak, into their heads. Gil Macdonald was a fellow of genius and energy. A Quentin Durward of a fellow; a man who would not consent to be starved at any price, and so had come South. The apprentices had asked“ Scotchy” to have some beer with them, but Scotchy would not, because he wern't sure whether or no he could treat them in return. They wanted Scotchy to go to Highbury Barn with them; but Scotchy wouldn't. They couldn't make friends with him: Scotchy didn't want them to; he wanted to make friends with them. He did so; he appealed to their generosity; and it is a queer sort of English apprentice, who can stand that appeal. Gil got first one of them, and then another, to show him little tricks in gun-making which he did not know, and they had gladly done so; after this Gil would sit up half the night easing them of their work. Yes, Scotchy was a good fellow, though he would not go to Highbury Barn. So Gil and the apprentices got fond of one another, as English and

Scotch lads always will, if there is no fool by to make mischief between them.

So much for Gil; and he deserves so much at least. We must return to Austin.

This young convict which he had taken up, or to be more correct, had taken up with him, persisted for a long while in calling himself Charlton. He was a fellow of very few words, but when he did speak he showed some knowledge of educated society. He was, to a certain extent, a companion to Austin. He was evidently, thought Austin, not a gentleman, but he had seen a great deal of gentlemen. One day Austin fancied that he might have been a billiard-. marker, and asked him the question.

"Yes," said Charlton, "I was a billiard-marker once. God bless you! I have been all sorts of things. I drove a Hansom cab once."

"Did you?"

"Yes. I drove one of the cleverest horses ever you saw. The horse had been in Astley's, and was almost like a Christian, by Jove! And one day, when I was in the public-house, a fellow hails my cab, and the waterman runs away after me. And the fellow gets in, by George! without noticing that there was no one to drive, and roars out Treasury!'