Mary was a widow. When she heard of her husband's
death, she had said to herself, "Thank God!" But when she had gone to
her room, and was sat a-thinking, she seemed to have had another
husband before she was bound up with that desperate, coining, forging
George Hawker--another husband bearing the same name; but surely that
handsome curly-headed young fellow, who used to wait for her so
patiently in the orchard at Drumston, was not the same George Hawker as
this desperate convict? She was glad the convict was dead and out of
the way; there was no doubt of that; but she could still find a corner
in her heart to be sorry for her poor old lover,--her handsome old
lover,--ah me!
But that even was passed now, and George Hawker was as one who had
never lived. Now on this evening we speak of, his memory came back just
an instant, as she heard the boy speak of the father, but it was gone
again directly. She called her servants, and was telling them to bring
supper, when Charles looked suddenly in, and said,--"Here they are!"
There they were, sure enough, putting the rams into the sheep-yard. Tom
Troubridge, as upright, bravelooking a man as ever, and, thanks to
bush-work, none the fatter.
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