'Five or six years passed away; the boy had become a robust and well-

grown youth. The time that had strengthened the child's slight frame

and knit his weak limbs into the strength of manhood had bowed his

mother's form, and enfeebled her steps; but the arm that should have

supported her was no longer locked in hers; the face that should have

cheered her, no more looked upon her own. She occupied her old seat,

but there was a vacant one beside her. The Bible was kept as carefully

as ever, the places were found and folded down as they used to be:

but there was no one to read it with her; and the tears fell thick and

fast upon the book, and blotted the words from her eyes. Neighbours

were as kind as they were wont to be of old, but she shunned their

greetings with averted head. There was no lingering among the old

elm-trees now-no cheering anticipations of happiness yet in store. The

desolate woman drew her bonnet closer over her face, and walked

hurriedly away.

Shall I tell you that the young man, who, looking back to the earliest

of his childhood's days to which memory and consciousness extended,

and carrying his recollection down to that moment, could remember

nothing which was not in some way connected with a long series of

voluntary privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with ill-

usage, and insult, and violence, and all endured for him - shall I tell

you, that he, with a reckless disregard for her breaking heart, and a

sullen, wilful forgetfulness of all she had done and borne for him, had

linked himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly

pursuing a headlong career, which must bring death to him, and

shame to her? Alas for human nature! You have anticipated it long

since.

The measure of the unhappy woman's misery and misfortune was

about to be completed. Numerous offences had been committed in the

neighbourhood; the perpetrators remained undiscovered, and their

boldness increased. A robbery of a daring and aggravated nature

occasioned a vigilance of pursuit, and a strictness of search, they had

not calculated on. Young Edmunds was suspected, with three

companions. He was apprehended - committed - tried - condemned -

to die. 'The wild and piercing shriek from a woman's voice, which

resounded through the court when the solemn sentence was

pronounced, rings in my ears at this moment. That cry struck a terror

to the culprit's heart, which trial, condemnation - the approach of

death itself, had failed to awaken. The lips which had been

compressed in dogged sullenness throughout, quivered and parted

involuntarily; the face turned ashy pale as the cold perspiration broke

forth from every pore; the sturdy limbs of the felon trembled, and he

staggered in the dock. 'In the first transports of her mental anguish,

the suffering mother threw herself on her knees at my feet, and

fervently sought the Almighty Being who had hitherto supported her

in all her troubles to release her from a world of woe and misery, and

The Pickwick Papers