“Very true; everything’s fierce with her—even love—and so he’ll find it if he don’t fancy her.”
“Yes, indeed:— well, I’d rather serve another ten years than she should fall in love with me.”
“And if I had my choice, whether to be her husband or to swing, I should take the cord in preference.”
“Well, I pity him from my heart; for he is a good youth and a fair-spoken and a handsome, too; and I’m sure that he has no idea of his unfortunate situation.”
“No idea, indeed,” said I to myself, as I walked away. “Merciful Heaven! Is it possible!” And when I thought over her conduct, and what had passed between us, I perceived not only that the convicts were right in their supposition, but that I had, by wishing to make myself agreeable to her, even assisted in bringing affairs to this crisis.
That very day she had said to me: “I was very young when I married, only fourteen, and I lived with my husband nine years. He is dead more than a year now.”
When she said that, which she did at dinner, while she was clawing the flesh off a wild turkey, there was something so ridiculous in that feminine confession, coming from such a masculine mouth, that I felt very much inclined to laugh, but I replied:
“You are a young widow, and ought to think of another husband.”
Again, when she said, “If ever I marry again, it shall not be a man who has been burnt on the hand. No, no, my husband shall be able to open both hands and show them.”
I replied, “You are right there. I would never disgrace myself by marrying a convict.”