Page 292 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

‘Ah, you read French, then, my dear young lady?’
‘Not very well. I had a master for some months, but papa
had to send him back to the gaol again. He stole a silver tan-
kard out of the dining-room.’
‘A French master! Stole—‘
‘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 poison-
ing 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.’

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