“You have me at an advantage,” cried the smuggler. “I am powerless, and cannot get away.”
“I hope you do not want to get away?”
“Yes, I do.”
“He’s very self-willed, and won’t bear being spoken to,” said Knoulton, addressing himself to the chaplain.
“I am perfectly assured that he is self-willed and obstinate, but that is the greater reason for my endeavouring to move him, and bring the unhappy man to a better condition. I am not in the habit of giving up persons of his nature as altogether hopeless.”
The chaplain then, in a slow, measured voice, read from the volume he had brought with him. Murdock this time made no objection. He closed his eyes, and appeared to be half asleep, nevertheless he listened to much the chaplain uttered.
The reading lasted some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Mr. Leverall was under the impression that the old evil-minded man had profited by his ministrations; he closed the book, and laying hold of the smuggler’s horny hand, shook it, and then took his departure—thinking he had done enough for the present, and to continue further would be only to weary the sick man.
“A good, kind gentleman,” said Knoulton, when the door had closed on the chaplain, “and he is one who takes a deep interest in all who have the misfortune to be incarcerated within these walls.”
“Ugh! He means well, I dare say,” cried Murdock.
“I am sure he does—no man ever meant better. I am sure I ought to speak well of him, for he has been both father and brother to me.”