"I doan't despair, nor for Jack, nor for myself," answered the preacher.
And Dr. Merrill grunted impatiently. Barnabas never had much inclination to confide in his own sex.
"You were never in the same boat with Jack. He was guilty, and the gallows tree was his natural goal. You come of an honest stock, and, if you're convicted, it will be through your own stupidity," said the doctor. "Come, Thorpe, of course you have an inalienable right to be a fool, if you choose; but, does it never strike you that it will be hard on your friends if you are sentenced?"
"Do ye suppose I've not thought o' all that?" said Barnabas doggedly. "I doan't knaw that I want to talk to 'ee about it, sir."
"No; you are mighty impatient of other people's sermons, but you'll listen to me before I've done with you," said the doctor. "You made a precious bad defence! Can you swear to me that you know nothing beyond what you've said in court? Aha! I thought you couldn't!"
"Why should I swear aught to 'ee?" said Barnabas. "I'm not asking advice, nor needing it. All the same," he added, after a moment, "I ought to thank ye for believing in me."
"Believe in you! I believe on my soul that you've got some crack-brained, pernicious notion that will lead you to slip your neck into a noose that was made for some one else, and that you'll find a bit too tight; now, for the sake of that unfortunate wife of yours——Hallo, you are attending to me now!"
"What ha' ye had to do wi' her? Is she ill? For God's sake, go on an' tell me about her, an' I'll listen to th' rest after," said the preacher. And the anxiety in his voice was so sharp that the doctor with a shrug of his shoulders complied.
"She had been knocked down by a cart, and she sent her brother-in-law to fetch me to bind up a scratch on her wrist. At least, that was the ostensible reason for my visit. As a matter of fact, she wanted to wheedle me into letting her see the inside of Newgate. No; she wasn't hurt; but it must be a nice state of things for her when her natural protector has to ask me whether she's ill or well! If I had a wife—which, thank Heaven, I have been preserved from—I should not sacrifice her to any skulking sneak. Poor woman! she nearly went on her knees to me, to persuade me to smuggle her in."
Barnabas winced. He hated to think that Margaret had pleaded to any man. Margaret, who, for all her gentleness, was so proud! It touched him to the quick too; did she want to see him so much?