Joseph was called a fine, promising young man; but his conduct was not altogether satisfactory to his parents. He was fond of dress and company, and his impetuous temperament not unfrequently involved him in quarrels. On two or three of these occasions, they feared he had been a little excited by drink. But he was, in reality, a good-hearted fellow, and, like his rough father, had undeveloped germs of deep tenderness within him. His father’s life was bound up within his; his mother loved him with all the energy of which her sluggish nature was capable; and notwithstanding the inequalities of his violent and capricious temper, the neighbours loved him also. What, then, was their consternation, when it was rumoured that on his twenty-fourth birth-day he had been arrested for murder! And, alas! it was too true that his passions had thus far over-mastered his reason. He wished to please a young girl in the vicinity; and she treated him coolly, because a rival had informed her that he was seen intoxicated, and in that state had spoken over-boldly of being sure of her love. He drank again, to drown his vexation; and while the excitement of the draught was on him, he met the man who informed against him. His exulting rival was injudicious enough to exclaim, “Ho! here you are, drunk again! What a promising fellow for a husband!” Unfortunately, an axe was at hand, and, in the double fury of drink and rage, he struck with it again and again. One hour after, he would have given all he ever hoped to possess, nay, he would gladly have died, could he have restored the life he had so wantonly destroyed. Thus, Mr. Barker was again brought into a court of justice on an affair of life and death. How differently all questions connected with the subject presented themselves now! As he sat beside that darling son, the pride of his life, his only hope on earth, oh, how he longed for words of fire, to plead that his young existence might be spared for repentance and amendment! How well he remembered the juryman’s plea for youth and intoxication! and with what an agony of self-reproach he recalled his own hard answer! With intense anxiety he watched the countenance of the jury for some gleams of compassion; but ever and anon, a pale young face loomed up between him and them, and gazed at him with fixed despair. The vision of other years returned to haunt him; and Joseph, his best beloved, his only one, stood beside it, pale and handcuffed, as _he_ had been. The voice that pronounced his son guilty sounded like an awful echo of his own; and he seemed to hear Mary Williams whisper, “And _my_ son also was very young.”