“He was a prisoner, you know. A clever man. He wrote for the London Magazine. I have read his writings. Some of them are quite above the average.”
“And how did he come to be transported?” asked Mr. Meekin, feeling that his vineyard was getting larger than he had anticipated.
“Poisoning his niece, I think, but I forget the particulars. He was a gentlemanly man, but, oh, such a drunkard!”
Mr. Meekin, more astonished than ever at this strange country, where beautiful young ladies talked of poisoning and flogging as matters of little moment, where wives imprisoned their husbands, and murderers taught French, perfumed the air with his cambric handkerchief in silence.
“You have not been here long, Mr. Meekin,” said Sylvia, after a pause.
“No, only a week; and I confess I am surprised. A lovely climate, but, as I said just now to Mrs. Jellicoe, the Trail of the Serpent—the Trail of the Serpent—my dear young lady.”
“If you send all the wretches in England here, you must expect the Trail of the Serpent,” said Sylvia. “It isn't the fault of the colony.”
“Oh, no; certainly not,” returned Meekin, hastening to apologize. “But it is very shocking.”
“Well, you gentlemen should make it better. I don't know what the penal settlements are like, but the prisoners in the town have not much inducement to become good men.”
“They have the beautiful Liturgy of our Holy Church read to them twice every week, my dear young lady,” said Mr. Meekin, as though he should solemnly say, “if that doesn't reform them, what will?”