Page:Execution, or, The affecting history of Tom Bragwell.pdf/21

 accident, I am afraid he is not much better for all that you said to him.

But tell me said I, "what has become of Bragwell? I hope, William, you did not forget my request at parting." "Ay, Tom Bragwell is in a poor situation now. O, sir, if you had seen him, when he was marched off from our prison by a party of soldiers, it would have made your heart  to look at him; for he was  like death than life! But it was not your fault, nor ours either:—far better for him had he ta’en your advice.'

"Much, very much has befallen him," said he, trying to compose himself, while he faultered out—"! and now lies in Holdagain jail, to be tried for his life!

After having furnished me with a mournful detail of the iniquitous course he had pursued, sever I particulars of which the young man had learned from Tom himself, while he lay in prison, I asked him when his trial was expected to come on, and how his father bore up under this severe affliction.

He informed me, that his trial was to come on in a fortnight; and that his father, since his departure, was in the most deplorable condition imaginable. Sometimes, he observed, the old man will break out into the most frantic lamentations, taking the whole blame upon himself, that by his want of firmness in correcting his son, he was brought to the unhappy situation he was in.—He had every reason to believe, that the old man would not live to be informed of the last moments