I can picture to myself that man scowling behind the bayonet line at
Maida, or rapidly and coolly serving his gun at Trafalgar, helping to
win the dominion of all seas, or taking his trick at the helm through
arctic iceblocks with Parry, or toiling on with steadfast Sturt,
knee-deep in the sand of the middle desert, patiently yet hopelessly
scanning the low quivering line of the north-west horizon.
In fifty situations where energy and courage are required, I can
conceive that man a useful citizen. Yet here he is on the lone moor, on
the winter's night, a reckless, cursing, thrice convicted man. His very
virtues,--his impatient energy and undeniable courage,--his
greatest stumbling-blocks, leading him into crimes which a lazy man or
a coward would have shrunk from. Deserted apparently by God and man, he
crouched there over the low fire, among his native rocks, and meditated
fresh villanies.
He had been transported at eighteen for something, I know not what,
which earned transportation in those days, and since then his naturally
violent temper, aggravated instead of being broken by penal discipline,
had earned him three fresh convictions in the colony.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67