But I was not scot-free. There was that other Indictment under the Black Act; and in that, alas, there was no flaw. The Solemn Court freed itself, to be sure, of the Mockery of finding a child under twelve years Guilty of the attempted murder of a Grenadier six feet high; but no less did the witnesses swear, and the Judge sum up, and Counsel for the Crown insist, and my Counsel feebly deny, and the Jury at last fatally find against me, that I had gone about armed and Disguised by night, and wandered up and down in the King's Forests, and stolen his Deer, and Goodness can tell what besides; and so, being found guilty, the middle Judge puts on his black cap again, and tells me that I am to be hanged on Monday week by the neck. He did not say any thing about my youth, or about my utter loneliness, or about the evil examples which had brought me to this Pass. Perhaps it was not his Duty, but that of the Ordinary, to tell me so. The Hanging was his department, the praying belonged to his Reverence. They led me back to prison, feeling rather hot and sick after the words I had listened to about being "hanged by the neck until I was dead," but still not caring much; for I could not rightly understand why all these fine gentlemen should be at the pains of Butchering me merely because I had run away from school (being so cruelly entreated by Gnawbit), and, to save myself from starvation, had joined the Blacks. Being to Die, it seemed for the first time to occur to them that I was not as the rest of the poor souls that were doomed to death, and that it behoved them to treat me rather as a lamb that is doomed for the slaughter than as a great overgrown Bullock to be knocked down by the Butcher's Pole-axe. So they put me away from the rest of my companions, and bestowed me in a sorry little chamber, where I had a truckle-bed to myself. Dear old Mother Drum, being still under disgrace, was not suffered to come near me. Her trial, with that of Cicely Grip, for harbouring armed and disguised men, under the Black Act, which was likewise a felony, was not to come on till the next session. I believe that the Great Gentlemen at Whitehall were, for a long time after my conviction, in a mind for Hanging me. 'Twas thought a small matter then to stretch the neck of a Boy of Twelve, and children even smaller than I had worn the white Nightcap, and smelt the Nosegay in the Cart. Indeed, I think the Ordinary wanted me to be Finished according to Law, that he might preach a Sermon on it, and liken me to one of the Children that mocked the Prophet, and was so eaten up by the She-Bears that came out of a Wood. When I think on the Reverend and Pious Persons who now attend our Criminals in their last unhappy Moments, and strive to bring them to a Sense of their Sins, it gives me the Goose-flesh to remember the Profane and Riotous Parsons who, for a Mean Stipend, did the contemned work of Gaol Chaplains in the days I speak of. Even while the Hangman