him the trouble; for being now pretty well satisfied that her hero was at the end of his career, she thought it most prudent to break off a connexion where nothing was to be gained, and make a merit of contributing her endeavours to bring the offender to justice. She called, therefore, this leader of the party into another room, and being informed by him that the young gentleman was suspected of having committed a robbery scarce an hour before, she pulled out the purse which she had just received from him, and asked the lawyer, "If it was that which had been taken from his client?"-" Ay, that it is, I'll be sworn," said he ; "and here (pouring out its contents,) is the ring he mentioned at the bottom."-"But," said she, pausing a little, "it will prove the thing as well without the guineas."—" I protest," returned the lawyer, "thou art a girl of excellent inventionHum-here are fourscore; one half of them might have been spent or dropt out by the way, or any thing may be supposed; and so we shall have twenty a-piece. Some folks to be sure would take more, but I love conscience in those matters."

Having finished this transaction in such a manner as might give no offence to the conscience of this honest pettifogger, they returned to the prisoner, who contented himself with darting a look of indignation at his female betrayer; and, after being some time in the custody of the lawyer and his assistants, he was carried in the morning, along with her, before a magistrate. The several circumstances I have related being sworn to, Annesly was committed to Newgate, and the gamester bound over to prosecute him at the next sessions, which were not then very distant.

CHAP. XXI.

gavest me being ! take back that life which thou didst breathe into me for the best of purposes, but which I have profaned by actions equally mischievous to thy government, and ignominious to myself. The passions which thou didst implant in me, that reason which should balance them is unable to withstand: from one only I receive useful admonition; the shame, that could not prevent, now punishes my crimes. Her voice for once I will obey; and leave a state, in which if I remain, I continue a blot to nature, and an enemy to man."

He drew a penknife, now his only weapon, from its sheath-he bared his bosom for the horrid deed-when the picture of his father, which the good man had bestowed on him at parting, and he had worn ever since in his bosom, struck his eye-(it was drawn in the mildness of holy meditation, with the hands folded together, and the eyes lifted to heaven)—“Merciful God!" said Annesly-he would have uttered a prayer, but his soul was wound up to a pitch that could but one way be let down-he flung himself on the ground, and burst into an agony of tears.

The door of the apartment opening, discovered the jailor, followed by Sir Thomas Sindall— “My friend in this place?" said he to Annesly,—who covered his face with his hands, and replied only by a groan.

Sindall made signs for the keeper of the prison to leave them;-" Come," said he, "my dear Annesly, be not so entirely overcome; I flatter myself, you know my friendship too well, to suppose that it will desert you even here. I may, perhaps, have opportunities of comforting you in many ways; at least I shall feel and pity your distresses." "Leave me," answered the other, "leave me; I deserve no pity, and methinks there is a pride in refusing it."—" You must not say so; my love has much to plead

by Conscience.

THOUGH Annesly must have suffered much during the agitation of these proceedings, yet that was little to what he felt, when left to reflection, in the solitude of his new abode. Let the virtuous remember, amidst their affliction, that though the heart of the good man may bleed even to death, it will never feel a torment equal to the rendings of remorse.

For some time the whirling of his brain gave him no leisure to exercise any faculty that could be termed thinking; when that sort of delirium subsided, it left him only to make room for more exquisite, though less turbulent anguish. After he had visited every corner of resource, and found them all dark and comfortless, he started at last from that posture of despair in which he sat, and turning the glare of his eye intently upwards:

"Take back," said he, " thou Power that

the world."-" Oh! Sindall," said he, "I am without excuse to myself! when I look back to that peace of mind, to that happiness I have squandered!-I will not curse, but-oh! fool, fool, fool!"—" I would not," said Sir Thomas, "increase that anguish which you feel, were I not obliged to mention the name of your father.' "My father!" cried Annesly; "O hide me from my father !"-" Alas!" replied Sindall, "he must hear of your disaster from other hands; and it were cruel not to acquaint him of it in a way that should wound him the least.” -Annesly gazed with a look of entrancement on his picture; "Great God!" said he, “for what hast thou reserved me? Sindall, do what thou wilt-think not of such a wretch as I am; but mitigate, if thou canst, the sorrows of a father, the purity of whose bosom must bleed for the vices of mine.”—“ Fear not,” returned Sir Thomas; "I hope all will be better than you imagine. It grows late, and I must leave you

now; but promise me to be more composed for the future. I will see you again early to-morrow; nor will I let a moment escape, that can. be improved to your service."-" I must think," said Annesly," and therefore I must feel; but I will often remember your friendship, and my gratitude shall be some little merit left in me to look upon without blushing."

Sindall bade him farewell, and retired; and at that instant he was less a villain than he used to be. The state of horror to which he saw this young man reduced, was beyond the limits of his scheme; and he began to look upon the victim of his designs, with that pity which depravity can feel, and that remorse which it cannot overcome.

CHAP. XVII.

His Father is acquainted with Annesly's situation. His behaviour in consequence of it.

THAT letter to old Annesly, which Sindall had undertaken to write, he found a more difficult task than at first he imagined. The solicitude of his friendship might have been easily. expressed on more common occasions, and hypocrisy to him was usually no unpleasing garb; but at this crisis of Annesly's fate, there were feelings he could not suppress; and he blushed to himself, amidst the protestations of concern and regard, with which this account of his misfortune (as he termed it) was accompanied.

Palliated, as it was, with all the art of Sir Thomas, it may be easily conceived what effect it must have on the mind of a father; a father at this time labouring under the pressure of disease, and confined to a sick-bed, whose intervals of thought were now to be pointed to the misery, the disgrace, perhaps the disgraceful death, of a darling child. His Harriet, after the first shock which the dreadful tidings had given her, sat by him, stifling the terrors of her gentle soul, and speaking comfort when her tears would let her.

His grief was aggravated, from the consideration of being at present unable to attend a son, whose calamities, though of his own procuring, called so loudly for support and assistance.

"Unworthy as your brother is, my Harriet," said he, "he is my son and your brother still; and must he languish amid the horrors of a prison, without a parent or a sister to lessen them? The prayers which I can put up from this sickbed are all the aid I can minister to him; but your presence might sooth his anguish, and alleviate his sufferings. With regard to this life, perhaps Do not weep, my love-But you might lead him to a reconciliation with that Being, whose sentence governs eternity! Would it frighten my Harriet to visit a dungeon ?""Could I leave my dearest father," said she,

no place could frighten me where my poor Bill is" -"Then you shall go, my child, and I shall be the better for thinking that you are with him: tell him, though he has wrung my heart, it has not forgotten him. That he should have forgotten me, is little; let him but now remember, that there is another Father, whose pardon is more momentous."

Harriet having therefore intrusted her father to the friendship of Mrs Wistanly, set out, accompanied by a niece of that gentlewoman's, who had been on a visit to her aunt, for the metropolis, where she arrived a few days before that which was appointed for the trial of her unhappy brother.

Though it was late in the evening when they reached London, yet Harriet's impatience would not suffer her to sleep till she had seen the poor prisoner; and, notwithstanding the remonstrances of her companion, to whom her aunt had recommended the tenderest concern about her young friend, she called a hackney-coach_immediately, to convey her to the place in which Annesly was confined; and her fellow-traveller, when her dissuasions to going had failed, very obligingly offered to accompany her.

They were conducted, by the turnkey, through a gloomy passage, to the wretched apartment which Annesly occupied: they found him sitting at a little table, on which he leaned, with his hands covering his face. When they entered, he did not change his posture; but on the turnkey's speaking, (for his sister was unable to speak,) he started up, and exhibited a countenance pale and haggard, his eyes blood-shot, and his hair dishevelled. On discovering his sister, a blush crossed his cheek, and the horror of his aspect was lost in something milder and more piteous" Oh! my Billy !" she cried, and sprung forward to embrace him. "This is too much," said he; "leave, and forget a wretch unworthy the name of thy brother."- -"Would my Billy kill me quite? this frightful place has almost killed me already! Alas! Billy, my dearest father!"-"Oh! Harriet, that name, that name! speak not of my father !"-"Ah!" said she, "if you knew his goodness; he sent me to comfort and support my brother; he sent me from himself, stretched on a sick-bed, where his Harriet should have tended him."-" Oh! cursed, cursed !"-" Nay, do not curse, my Billy, he sends you none; his prayers, his blessings rise for you to heaven; his forgiveness he bade me convey you, and tell you to seek that of the Father of all goodness!"-His sister's hands were clasped in his; he lifted both together. "If thou canst hear me," said he,-" I dare not pray for myself; but spare a father, whom my crimes have made miserable; let me abide the wrath I have deserved, but weigh not down his age for my offences; punish it not with the remembrance of me!" He fell on his sister's neck, and they mingled their tears; nor could the young lady

grossness of his fancy with the anticipation of her undoing.

CHAP. XVIII.

I

His Sister pays him another visit. A description of what passed in the Prison.

IT was late before Harriet could think even of going to bed, and later before her mind could be quieted enough to allow her any sleep. But nature was at last worn out; and the fatigue of her journey, together with the conflict of her soul in the visit she had just made, had so exhausted her, that it was towards noon next day before she awaked. After having chid herself for her neglect, she hurried away to her muchloved brother, whom she found attended by that baronet, to whose good offices I have had so frequent occasion to shew him indebted in the course of my story.

At sight of him, her cheek was flushed with the mingled glow of shame for her brother, and gratitude towards his benefactor. He advanced to salute her; when, with the tears starting into her eyes, she fell on her knees before him, and poured forth a prayer of blessings on his head. There could not perhaps be a figure more lovely, or more striking, than that which she then exhibited. The lustre of her eyes, heightened by those tears with which the overflowing of her heart supplied them; the glow of her ́complexion, animated with the suffusion of tenderness and gratitude; these, joined to the easy negligence of her dark-brown locks, that waved in ringlets on her panting bosom, made altogether such an assemblage as beauty is a word too weak for. So forcibly indeed was Sindall struck with it, that some little time passed before he thought of lifting her from the ground: he looked his very soul at every glance; but it was a soul unworthy of the object on which he gazed, brutal, unfeeling, and inhuman; he considered her, at that moment, as already within the reach of his machinations, and feasted the

But whatever were Sir Thomas's sensations at the sight of Harriet, they were interrupted by the jailor, who now entered the room, and informed him, that a gentleman without was earnest to speak with him. "Who can it be?" said Sir Thomas, somewhat peevishly." If I am not mistaken,” replied the jailor, “ it is a gentleman of the name of Camplin, a lawyer, whom I have seen here with some of the prisoners before."—" This is he of whom I talked to you, my dear Annesly," said the Baronet ; "let me introduce him to you."-" I have taken my resolution," returned Annesly, “and shall have no need of lawyers for my defence.”

"It must not be," rejoined the other; and going out of the room, he presently returned with Mr Camplin. All this while Harriet's looks betrayed the strongest symptoms of terror and perplexity; and when the stranger appeared, she drew nearer and nearer to her brother, with an involuntary sort of motion, till she had twined his arm into hers, and placed herself between him and Camplin. This last observed her fears; for indeed she bent her eyes most fixedly upon him; and making her a bow, " Be not afraid, Miss," said he, "here are none but friends. I learn, sir, that your day is now very near, and that it is time to be thinking of the business of it."-" Good Heavens!" cried Harriet, "what day?"-" Make yourself easy, madam," continued Camplin ; " being the first trip, I hope he may fall soft for this time. I believe nobody doubts my abilities; I have saved many a brave man from the gallows, whose case was more desperate than I take this young gentleman's to be."

The colour, which had been varying on her cheek during this speech, now left it for a dead pale; and turning her languid eyes upon her brother, she fell motionless into his arms. He supported her to a chair that stood near him, and darting an indignant look at the lawyer, begged of the jailor to procure her some immediate assistance. Sindall, who was kneeling on the other side of her, ordered Camplin, who was

advancing to make offer of his services too, to be gone, and send them the first surgeon he could find. A surgeon indeed had been already procured, who officiated in the prison, for the best of all reasons, because he was not at liberty to leave it. The jailer now made his appearance, with a bottle of wine in one hand, and some water in the other; followed by a tall, meagre, ragged figure, who, striding up to Harriet, applied a small vial of volatile salt to her nose, and chafing her temples, soon brought her to sense and life again. Annesly, pressing her to his bosom, begged her to recollect herself, and forget her fears. "Pardon this weakness, my dear Billy," said she, "I will try to overcome it; is that horrid man gone? who is this gentleman?"-" I have the honour to be a doctor of physic, madam," said he, clapping at the same time his greasy fingers to her pulse. "Here is a fulness that calls for venesection." So without loss of time he pulled out a case of lancets, covered with rust, and spotted with the blood of former patients. "Oh! for Heaven's sake, no bleeding," cried Harriet; "indeed there is no occasion for it."-" How, no occasion!" exclaimed the other; "I have heard indeed some ignorants condemn phlebotomy in such cases; but it is my practice, and I am very well able to defend it. It will be allowed, that in plethoric habits-" Spare your demonstration," interrupted Annesly," and think of your patient."" You shall not blood me," said she; ; "you shall not indeed, sir !”—“ Nay, madam,” said he," as you please; you are to know that the operation itself is no part of my profession; it is only propter necessitatem, for want of chirurgical practitioners, that I sometimes condescend to it in this place." Sir Thomas gave him a hint to leave them, and at the same time slipped a guinea into his hand. He immediately retired, looking at the unusual appearance of the gold with a joy that made him forget the obstinacy of his patient, and her rejection of his assistance.

Annesly, assisted by his friend, used every possible argument to comfort and support his sister. His concern for her had indeed banished for a while the consideration of his own state; and when he came to think on that solemn day, on which the trial for his life was appointed, his concern was more interested for its effect on his Harriet, than for that it should have on himself.

After they had passed great part of the day together, Sir Thomas observed, that Miss Annesly's present lodgings (in the house of her fellow-traveller's father) were so distant as to occasion much inconvenience to her in her visits to her brother; and very kindly made offer of endeavouring to procure her others but a few streets off, under the roof of a gentlewoman, he said, an officer's widow of his acquaintance, who, if she had any apartment unoccupied at

the time, he knew would be as attentive to Miss Annesly as if she were a daughter of her own.

This proposal was readily accepted; and Sir Thomas having gone upon the inquiry, returned in the evening with an account of his having succeeded in procuring the lodgings; that he had taken the liberty to call and fetch Miss Annesly's baggage from those she had formerly occupied, and that every thing was ready at Mrs Eldridge's (that was the widow's name) for her reception. After supper he conducted her thither accordingly.

As he was going out, Annesly whispered him to return for a few minutes after he had set down his sister, as he had something particular to communicate to him. When he came back, "You have heard, I fancy, Sit Thomas," said he, "that the next day but one is the day of my trial. As to myself, I wait it with resignation, and shall not give any trouble to my country by a false defence; but I tremble for my sister's knowing it. Could we not contrive some method of keeping her in ignorance of its appointment till it be over, and then prepare her for the event, without subjecting her to the tortures of anxiety and suspense?" Sindall agreed in the propriety of the latter part of his scheme; and they resolved to keep his sister that day at home, on pretence of a meeting in the prison between the lawyers of Annesly, and those of his prosecutor. But he warmly insisted that Annesly should accept the services of Camplin towards conducting the cause on his part. "Endeavour not to persuade me, my friend," said Annesly; "for I now rest satisfied with my determination. I thank Heaven, which has enabled me to rely on its goodness, and meet my fate with the full possession of myself. I will not disdain the mercy which my country may think I merit; but I will not entangle myself in chicane and insincerity, to avoid her justice."

CHAP. XIX.

The fute of Annesly determined.-Sindall's friendship, and the gratitude of Harriet.

NOTHING remarkable happened till that day when the fate of Annesly was to be determined by the laws of his country. The project formed by Sindall and himself, for keeping his sister ignorant of its importance, succeeded to their wish: she spent it at home, comforting herself with the hope, that the meeting she understood to be held on it might turn out advantageously for her brother, and soothed by the kindness of her landlady, who had indeed fully answered Sir Thomas's expectations in the attention she had shewn her.

Meanwhile, her unfortunate brother was brought to the bar, indicted for the robbery committed on the gamester. When he was ask

ed, in the customary manner, to plead, he stood up, and addressing himself to the judge:

"I am now, my lord," said he, "in a situation of all others the most solemn. I stand in the presence of God and my country, and I am called to confess or deny that crime for which I have incurred the judgment of both. If I have offended, my lord, I am not yet an obdurate of fender: I fly not to the subterfuge of villainy, though I have fallen from the dignity of innocence; and I will not screen a life which my crimes have disgraced, by a coward lie to prevent their detection. I plead guilty, my lord, and await the judgment of that law, which, though I have violated, I have not forgotten to revere.' When he ended, a confused murmur ran through the court, and for some time stopped the judge in his reply. Silence obtained, that upright magistrate, worthy the tribunal of England, spoke to this effect :

"I am sincerely sorry, young gentleman, to see one of your figure at this bar, charged with a crime for which the public safety has been obliged to award an exemplary punishment. Much as I admire the heroism of your confession, I will not suffer advantage to be taken of it to your prejudice: reflect on the consequences of a plea of guilt, which takes from you all opportunity of a legal defence, and speak again, as your own discretion, or your friends, may best advise you."-" I humbly thank your lordship," said Annesly," for the candour and indulgence which you shew me; but I have spoken the truth, and will not allow myself to think of retracting it."—" I am here," returned his lordship, as the dispenser of justice, and I have nothing but justice to give; the province of mercy is in other hands: if, upon inquiry, the case is circumstanced as I wish it to be, my recommendation shall not be wanting to enforce an application there." Annesly was then convicted of the robbery, and the sentence of the law passed upon him.

66

But the judge, before whom he was tried, was not unmindful of his promise; and having satisfied himself, that, though guilty in this instance, he was not habitually flagitious, he assisted so warmly the applications which, through the interest of Sindall, (for Sindall was in this sincere,) were made in his behalf, that a pardon was obtained for him, on the condition of his suffering transportation for the term of fourteen years.

This alleviation of his punishment was procured, before his sister was suffered to know that his trial had ever come on, or what had been its event. When his fate was by this means determined, Sindall undertook to instruct the lady in whose house he had placed her, that Miss Annesly should be acquainted with the circumstances of it in such a manner, as might least discompose that delicacy and tenderness of which

her mind was so susceptible. The event answered his expectation; that good woman seemed possessed of as much address as humanity; and Harriet, by the intervention of both, was led to the knowledge of her brother's situation with so much prudence, that she bore it at first with resignation, and afterwards looked upon it with thankfulness.

After that acknowledgment to Providence which she had been early instructed never to forget, there was an inferior agent in this affair, to whom her warmest gratitude was devoted. Besides that herself had the highest opinion of Sindall's good offices, her obliging landlady had taken every opportunity, since their acquaintance began, to sound forth his praises in the most extravagant strain; and, on the present occasion, her encomiums were loud, in proportion as Harriet's happiness was concerned in the

event.

Sir Thomas therefore began to be considered by the young lady as the worthiest of friends; his own language bore the strongest expressions of friendship-of friendship, and no more; but the widow would often insinuate, that he felt more than he expressed; and when Harriet's spirits could bear a little raillery, her landlady did not want for jokes on the subject.

These suggestions of another have a greater effect than is often imagined; they are heard with an ease which does not alarm, and the mind habituates itself to take up such a credit on their truth, as it would be sorry to lose, though it is not at the trouble of examining. Harriet did not seriously think of Sindall as of one that was her lover; but she began to make such arrangements, as not to be surprised if he should.

One morning, when Sir Thomas had called to conduct her on a visit to her brother, Mrs Eldridge rallied him at breakfast on his being still a bachelor. "What is your opinion, Miss Annesly?" said she ; " is it not a shame for one of Sir Thomas's fortune not to make some worthy woman happy in the participation of it?" Sindall submitted to be judged by so fair an arbitress: he said, "The manners of the court ladies, whose example had stretched unhappily too far, were such as made it a sort of venture to be married." He then paused for a moment, sighed, and, fixing his eyes upon Harriet, drew such a picture of the woman whom he would choose for a wife, that she must have had some sillier qualities than mere modesty about her, not to have made some guess at his meaning.

In short, though she was as little wanting in delicacy as most women, she began to feel a certain interest in the good opinion of Sindall, and to draw some conclusions from his deportment, which, for the sake of my fair readers, I would have them remember, are better to be slowly understood than hastily indulged.