"Thomas, I am innocent' I swear by the great God that shall judge me
another day, I am innocent!"

"Pray, do not swear! for goodness' sake, do not swear! your poor soul is
damned enough without that. For your sake, lad, I will never take any
body's word, nor trust to appearances, tho' it should be an angel. Lord
bless us! how smoothly you palavered it over, for all the world, as if
you had been as fair as a new-born babe! But it will not do; you will
never be able to persuade people that black is white. For my own part, I
have done with you. I loved you yesterday, all one as if you had been my
own brother. To-day I love you so well, that I would go ten miles with
all the pleasure in life to see you hanged."

"Good God, Thomas! have you the heart? What a change! I call God to
witness, I have done nothing to deserve it! What a world do we live in!"

"Hold your tongue, boy! It makes my very heart sick to hear you! I
would not lie a night under the same roof with you for all the world! I
should expect the house to fall and crush such wickedness! I admire that
the earth does not open and swallow you alive! It is poison so much as
to look at you! If you go on at this hardened rate, I believe from my
soul that the people you talk to will tear you to pieces, and you will
never live to come to the gallows. Oh, yes, you do well to pity
yourself; poor tender thing! that spit venom all round you like a toad,
and leave the very ground upon which you crawl infected with your
slime."

Finding the person with whom I talked thus impenetrable to all I could
say, and considering that the advantage to be gained was small, even if