Page 660 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

at which the chaplain was accustomed to visit him. He pre-
tended that the man was ‘dangerous’, and directed a gaoler
to be present at all interviews, ‘lest the chaplain might be
murdered”. He issued an order that all civil officers should
obey the challenges of convicts acting as watchmen; and
North, coming to pray with his penitent, would be stopped
ten times by grinning felons, who, putting their faces with-
in a foot of his, would roar out, ‘Who goes there?’ and burst
out laughing at the reply. Under pretence of watching more
carefully over the property of the chaplain, he directed that
any convict, acting as constable, might at any time ‘search
everywhere and anywhere’ for property supposed to be in
the possession of a prisoner. The chaplain’s servant was a
prisoner, of course; and North’s drawers were ransacked
twice in one week by Troke. North met these impertinenc-
es with unruffled brow, and Frere could in no way account
for his obstinacy, until the arrival of the Lady Franklin ex-
plained the chaplain’s apparent coolness. He had sent in his
resignation two months before, and the saintly Meekin had
been appointed in his stead. Frere, unable to attack the cler-
gyman, and indignant at the manner in which he had been
defeated, revenged himself upon Rufus Dawes.