One evening, at dusk, Harry Rochester, whom no experience could cure of his habit of taking solitary strolls, was seated on a bridge spanning the Merk at a short distance outside Breda. His thoughts were anything but pleasant. Aglionby and his associates, though defended by the sharpest criminal lawyer in Holland, had been condemned to death, and the execution had been fixed for the morrow. Harry knew that the captain richly deserved his fate; his action in betraying his cousin Sherebiah in itself put him beyond the pale of pity, to say nothing of his persistent offences against Sherebiah’s master, which Harry was more ready to forgive. But despicable as the man was, Harry, almost in spite of himself, felt a certain compassion for him. He had learnt from Sherebiah something of his history. His mother, old Gaffer Minshull’s sister, had died when Ralph was very young, heart-broken by her husband, one of Cromwell’s Ironsides, yet a hypocrite of the most brutal type. Aglionby had received a fair education, but had run wild from boyhood, and as a mere youth had decamped or been driven from his father’s house and gone out into the world to seek his fortune. Sherebiah had lost sight of him for years; suddenly he had reappeared at Winton St. Mary, seared with travel and hard faring, and full of stories of adventure and prowess in all parts of Europe, especially in the service of the Czar of Muscovy. Harry knew as much as Sherebiah of his subsequent career, and shared the surprise of the whole village at the strangely close acquaintanceship between the captain and the squire. This was the man who was to die next day, and Harry, sitting on the bridge, one hand clasping his knee, almost wished that he had let the villain go. He had been brought up in the worst school; all his life long he had been an Ishmael, his hand against every man, every man’s hand against him. His mother had been a Minshull: surely there was some seed of good in him; mayhap his villainies were only the desperate expedients of a man who had no means of livelihood; certainly he could have no cause of enmity against Harry, and his machinations must be put down to the man who employed him. His approaching fate weighed also upon Sherebiah, who had for days gone about with restlessness and anxiety printed upon his usually jocund face. Certainly the good fellow had no reason to love Aglionby, but after all they were of the same blood, and Sherry appeared to fear keenly the shame and disgrace.