"Put that down, Crisp. Such conduct is shameful; and I wonder the Gaol Committee of Aldermen don't take the matter up."
"So they will," rejoined the turnkey. "But here comes Busby."
And, as he spoke, the tall man in plain clothes re-entered the lobby.
"All right?" asked the Superintendent.
"Yes. We'll take him over at once," was the reply.
The turnkey stepped into a passage leading to the interior of the gaol, and gave some instructions to a colleague who was stationed there.
A few minutes afterwards Henry Holford, dressed in his own clothes, and not in the prison-garb, was led into the lobby by the official to whom the turnkey had spoken.
The youth was well in health, and by no means cast down in spirits. His face, at no period remarkable for freshness of colour, was less pallid than it ever before had been. There were, however, a certain apathy and indifference in his manner which might have induced a superficial observer to conclude that his reason was in reality affected; but a careful examination of the expression of his countenance and a few minutes' study of his intelligent dark eyes, would have served to convince even the most sceptical that, however morbid his mind might for an interval have become, that excitement or disease had passed away, and he was now as far removed from insanity as the most rational of God's creatures.
"Come, young man," said Mr. Busby, with great kindness of manner, as if he were endeavouring to conciliate an individual whom he actually deemed to be of disturbed intellects; "you are going along with me—and I'll take you to a nice house with a pleasant garden, and where you'll be well treated."
"I am at no loss to imagine the place to which you allude," said Holford, an expression of slyness curling his lip. "Better Bedlam than Newgate."