Seated a little to the left, and looking him stedfastly in the face, was one warder; and behind him, a little to his right, was a second official—not lolling back in their chairs with folded arms, and endeavouring to make their irksome task as pleasant as possible. Nothing of the kind. They were all attention, ready to spring forward to the convict in an instant.
Willie asked his father how he was, and he replied, “I am a little better, but very weak.”
Dropping his head and breathing apparently with difficulty, he repeated, “I am really very weak.” He then looked at the friend as much as to say, “Who are you?”
Willie told his father that his friend was the gentleman to whom he referred on the previous day; and the convict nodded, as though gratified to see him. Peace asked respecting the witnesses who could be collected at Darnall.
“There are plenty of people there,” he said, “who can tell what sort of a woman Mrs. Dyson is, if you can only get them to come.”
Then becoming more animated and apparently wishful to get closer to the bars which separated him from his friends, he made a move as though he would stand up and draw his chair towards them.
Instantly the warders were at his side, and one of them said, “Don’t disturb yourself! We’ll move you!” Instead, however, of drawing him nearer to his son, they lifted the chair perhaps a foot further from the visitors, nearer to the wall, and more immediately under the gas.
A savage scowl came over his face, and he gave them a look that plainly said, “That was not what I wanted.”
An almost painful silence prevailed for a few moments, and then the convict looked at his son and said, “Do you know a house in Westbar, opposite to the top of Bower Spring? There is such a shop and such a shop (mentioning the business carried on in each), and then there is the house I mean.”
Willie asked him if he meant the “Little Tankard” or the “Old Tankard?”