Harry Martin had risen while Morley was speaking, and was gazing in his face, with an expression in which doubt and suspicion seemed to mingle with satisfaction. "I don't think you would play me a trick, sir," he said, as Morley concluded, "and yet it's strange enough, your starting up in that way the moment the old woman mentioned Lawyer Carr!"
Morley returned his gaze with a look of unmixed surprise, "I don't understand what you mean," he answered; "what have you to do with Lawyer Carr? or Lawyer Carr to do with you?"
"Everything in the world," cried Harry Martin, knitting his brows, and stamping his foot--"everything in the world--don't you know that?"
It was the old woman who now replied, for she seemed now the most astonished of the party, and catching Martin by the arm, she asked--"Is it old Carr, then, that you are afraid of? He had better not touch a hair of your head!"
"Nonsense--nonsense, granny!" said the man; "you don't understand what you are talking about. But I see Sir Morley has not heard of the job. Sir, I'm very much obliged to you for your offer, and wont say No, but will just talk to my wife about it after you are gone, if it would not be too much trouble for you to give the orders upon the chance."
"I will not fail to have the place put in order," replied Morley; "and you may be sure that if they do come, they shall be well taken care of. As for yourself, Martin, I can offer you nothing, for your own words have, of course, given me to suspect that you have placed yourself in a situation which precludes me from affording you shelter, or any sort of aid, except of a pecuniary kind. If, however, you are in want of money, all that I have about me is at your service."
"Thank you, sir," said Martin, with a light, laugh at the double meaning of that which was about to spring from his lips; "I am very much obliged to you, but I do not want your money, or I would have taken it, I can assure you.--Though that is not true either," he added; "I might have taken a stranger's, but not yours, Sir Morley; but the fact is, I don't want money."
"Of that I am very happy," answered Morley; "but I cannot help expressing a regret, Martin, that you should adhere to a course so dangerous as well as so evil. I thought, when first I saw you, and think still, that you were intended for better things, and might distinguish yourself, and raise yourself high in a good and honourable course."
The man he spoke to cast down his eyes, and gazed musingly upon the ground for several minutes, but he then replied--"Thank you, sir, for your good opinion; but it's all nonsense talking or thinking of such things now--it's too late in the day to mend. The worst of the laws of this country, and of what people call society, is, that they never allow any man to get better. A man may get worse in this world every day, if he likes it; the bad road is always open before him, and plenty there are to drive him on upon it. But if he tries to go back again, sir, to the good road that he has left, there is sure to be some one to bang the turnpike in his face, and stop him ere he has got half a mile. I cannot help thinking, sir, that it is a pity those men who set about making laws and customs, do not recollect that there is such a thing as amending as well as punishing. I believe it would be better for all of us if they did; for now, even a hardened scoundrel like myself, as they would call me if I were in a prison tomorrow, why, a very little thing would have made me a better man at one time, and I don't believe it would take very much even now. It may be an odd thing to say, for a man who does something wrong every day, that he never does anything that is wrong without being sorry for it very soon after it's done; but yet it is true; and, even now, a word or two of encouragement, such as you spoke to me just this minute, makes me feel quite vexed with myself that I have not gone in the right way instead of the wrong."
"There is some truth in what you say," replied Morley, "that our laws and our customs, in dealing both with man and woman, seem to lose sight altogether of the great object of reformation. Terror is the only instrument we use, and terror never yet reclaimed. Nevertheless, though the path back, Martin, must always be more difficult and laborious than the path onward, still I believe it may be trodden, if a man have a strong heart and a good resolution; and I trust that, when you have made your escape to another country, and are out of danger altogether, you will think of what we have been saying tonight, and will see whether, in a new world, you cannot live a new life.