BBOXWILL GAOL――GUILTY OF WILFUL MURDER――PEACE SEES THE LAST OF GREGSON.
While Peace was in comparative security, and enjoying immunity for his past crimes, the hours were rolling away sadly enough with Mr. Edward Gregson, alias the Bristol Badger, alias the Old Un. He was caught in a net from which he was not likely to escape. He was deeply impressed with this fact.
The day appointed for his trial was close at hand, the nearer it approached the more anxious, nervous, and fidgety, he became. He was anxious to obtain the services of some leading barrister to conduct his defence, but he had not funds sufficient for that purpose.
His sister, who was married to a drunken, worthless fellow, was the only person who stood by him in the hour of his extreme need. She went, at his request, from one to another of the burglar’s quondam associates, for the purpose of raising a sum sufficient for the defence.
At Gregson’s direction she waited upon Peace, who was not a little disconcerted when she presented herself at his lodging in Bradford. He, however, did more than many of the others did――he gave her a few pounds.
He also spoke words of kindness to her, and expressed a hope that the verdict would be more favourable than anticipated.
And now let us return to Gregson, who had been confined in one of the model cells of Broxwill.
The little money he had with him at the time of his capture, he had spent entirely upon sumptuous dinners.
Gorging himself, like a boa constrictor, he would fling his enormous frame upon the hammock-like bed, which oscillated beneath his weight, and slept from dinner time to dinner time.
Thus did the earlier portion of his imprisonment pass pleasantly enough.
It is true that he sometimes complained of the regulation respecting the quart of malt liquor, but upon the whole behaved himself very quietly.
In fact, as he was almost invariably asleep, it could hardly have been otherwise.
But, alas! one dreadful morning he was informed that his money was all gone, and that he must, for the future, content himself with the prison diet.
A mug of gruel and a piece of bread was brought him for his breakfast. He surveyed it with contempt, and emptied it away into the slops.
He did not care about breakfast or tea. He liked being fed once a day, like the lions in a menagerie, or the bull terriers in the mews.