'Pray what said the indictment?' asked Mrs. Ponsonby.

'Oh, that he had killed an infant trout of the value of three
farthings! Three giant keepers made oath to it, but I had his own
mother's word that he was washing his feet!'

No one could help laughing, but Fitzjocelyn was far past perceiving
any such thing. 'Urge what I would, they fined him. I talked to old
Brewster! I appealed to his generosity, if there be room for
generosity about a trout no bigger than a gudgeon! I talked to Mr.
Calcott, who, I thought, had more sense, but Justice Shallow would
have been more practicable! No one took a rational view but
Ramsbotham of the factory, a very sensible man, with excellent
feeling. When it is recorded in history, who will believe that seven
moral, well-meaning men agreed in condemning a poor lad of fifteen to
a fine of five shillings, costs three-and-sixpence--a sum he could no
more pay than I the National Debt, and with the alternative of three
months' imprisonment, branding and contaminating for life, and
destroying all self-respect? I paid the fine, so there is one act of
destruction the less on the heads of the English squirearchy.'

'Act of destruction!'

'The worst destruction is to blast a man's character because the love
of adventure is strong within him--!'

He was at this point when Lord Ormersfield entered, and after his
daily civil ceremonious inquiries of the ladies whether they had
walked or driven out, he turned to his son, saying, 'I met Mr.
Calcott just now, and heard from him that he had been sorry to