but must be fed now. At other times, I thought,
What if the young man who was with so much
difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in
me, should yield to a constitutional
impatience, or should mistake the time, and should
think himself accredited to my heart and liver
to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever
anybody's hair stood on end with terror, mine must
have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody's ever
did?

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the
pudding for next day, with the copper-stick,
from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried
it with the load upon my leg (and that made me
think afresh of the man with the load on his
leg), and found the tendency of exercise to
bring the bread-and-butter out at my ankle,
quite unmanageable. Happily, I slipped away,
and deposited that part of my conscience in my
garret bedroom.

"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring,
and was taking a final warm in the chimney
corner before being sent up to bed; " was that
great guns, Joe?"

"Ah !" said Joe. " There's another conwict
off."

"What does that mean Joe?" said I.

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon
herself, said, snappishly, " Escaped. Escaped."
Administering the definition like Tar-water.

While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending
over her needlework, I put my mouth into the
forms of saying to Joe, " What's a convict?"
Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning
such a highly elaborate answer, that I could
make out nothing of it but the single word
"Pip."

"There was a conwict off last night," said
Joe, aloud, " after sunset-gun. And they fired
warning of him. And now, it appears they're
firing warning of another."

"Who's firing?" said I.

"Drat that boy," interposed my sister,
frowning at me over her work, " what a
questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you'll be
told no lies."

It was not very polite to herself, I thought,
to imply that I should be told lies by her, even
if I did ask questions. But she never was
polite, unless there was company.

At this point, Joe greatly augmented my
curiosity by taking the utmost pains to open
his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form
of a word that looked to me like "sulks."
Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and
put my mouth into the form of saying, " her?"
But Joe wouldn't hear of that, at all, and again
opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form
of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could
make nothing of the word.

"Mrs. Joe," said I, as a last resource, " I
should like to know — if you wouldn't much
mind—where the firing comes from?"

"Lord bless the boy!" exclaimed my sister,
as if she didn't quite mean that, but rather the
contrary. "From the Hulks."

"Oh-h!" said I, looking at Joe. " Hulks!"

Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to
say, " Well, I told you so."

"And please what's Hulks?" said I.

"That's the way with this boy!" exclaimed
my sister, pointing me out with her needle and
thread, and shaking her head at me. " Answer
him one question, and he'll ask you a dozen
directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right 'cross
th' meshes." We always used that name for
marshes, in our country.

"I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and
why they're put there?" said I, in a general
way, and with quiet desperation.

It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who
immediately rose. " I tell you what, young fellow,"
said she, " I didn't bring you up by hand to
badger people's lives out. It would be blame
to me, and not praise, if I had. People are put
in the Hulks because they murder, and because
they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and
they always begin by asking questions. Now,
you get along to bed!"

I was never allowed a candle to light me to
bed, and, as I went up-stairs in the dark, with my
head tingling — from Mrs. Joe's thimble, having
played the tambourine upon it, to accompany
her last words — I felt fearfully sensible of the
great convenience that the Hulks were handy for
me. I was clearly on my way there. I had
begun by asking questions, and I was going to
rob Mrs. Joe.

Since that time, which is far enough away
now, I have often thought that few people know
what secrecy there is in the young, under terror.
No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that
it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the
young man who wanted my heart and liver; I
was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the
ironed leg; I was in mortal terror of myself,
from whom an awful promise had been extracted;
I had no hope of deliverance through my all-
powerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn;
I am afraid to think of what I might have done,
upon requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.

If I slept at all that night, it was only to
imagine myself drifting down the river on a
strong spring tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate
calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet,
as I passed the gibbet-station, that I had better
come ashore and be hanged there at once, and
not put it olf. I was afraid to sleep, even if I
had been inclined, for I knew that at the first
faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry.
There was no doing it in the night, for there
was no getting a light by easy friction then; to
have got one, I must have struck it out of flint
and steel, and have made a noise like the very
pirate himself rattling his chains.

As soon as the great black velvet pall outside
my little window was shot with grey, I got up
and went down stairs; every board upon the
way, and every crack in every board, calling
after me, "Stop thief!" and "Get up, Mrs.
Joe!" In the pantry, which was far more
abundantly supplied than usual, owing to the
season, I was very much alarmed, by a hare
hanging up by the heels, whom I rather thought