The magistrate asked him something of his story. He said he had formerly driven a stage-coach, in the north of Ireland, and had a small share in the proprietorship of the coach. In this time of his prosperity he married a young woman with a little property, but he failed in business, and, after enduring many troubles, he enlisted as a private soldier in the 18th, or Royal Irish Regiment of Foot, and went on foreign service, taking with him his wife and four children--Henry (the prisoner) being his second son, and his "darling pride." At the end of nine years he was discharged, in this country, without a pension, or a friend in the world; and coming to London, he, with some trouble, got employed as a paviour, by "the gentlemen who manage the streets at Mary-la-bonne." "Two years ago, your honour," he continued, "my poor wife was wearied out with the world, and she deceased from me, and I was left alone with the children; and every night after I had done work I washed their faces, and put them to bed, and washed their little bits o'things, and hanged them o' the line to dry, myself--for I'd no money, your honour, and so I could not have a housekeeper to do for them, you know. But, your honour, I was as happy as I well could be, considering my wife was deceased from me, till some bad people came to live at the back of us; and they were always striving to get Henry amongst them, and I was terribly afraid something bad would come of it, as it was but poorly I could do for him; and so I'd made up my mind to take all my children to Ireland.--If he had only held up another week, your honour, we should have gone, and he would have been saved. But now!----" [Illustration: A DISTRESSED FATHER.] Here the poor man looked at his boy again, and wept; and when the magistrate endeavoured to console him by observing that his son would sail for Botany Bay, and probably do well there; he replied somewhat impatiently,--"Aye, it's fine talking, your worship; I pray to the great God he may never sail any where, unless he sails with _me_ to Ireland?" and then, after a moment's thought, he asked, in the humblest tone imaginable, "Doesn't your honour think a little bit of a petition might help him?" The magistrate replied, it possibly might; and added, "If you attend his trial at the Old Bailey, and plead for him as eloquently in word and action as you have done here, I think it would help him still more." "Aye, but then _you_ won't be there, I suppose, will you?" asked the poor fellow, with that familiarity which is in some degree sanctioned by extreme distress; and when his worship replied that he certainly should not be present, he immediately rejoined, "Then--what's the use of it! There will be nobody there who knows _me_; and what _strangers_ will listen to a poor old broken-hearted fellow, who can't speak for crying?"