As he spoke, two soldiers seized me on either side, and before a minute
elapsed, pinioned my arms behind my back. In another moment the men fell
in, the order was given to march, and I was led away between the files,
Kelly following at the rear; while Barton's voice might be heard issuing
from the cabin, as he gave his orders for the burial of the body, and
the removal of all the effects and papers to the barrack at Glencree.
We might have been about an hour on the road when Barton overtook us.
He rode to the head of the party, and handing a paper to the sergeant,
muttered some words, among which I could only gather the phrase,
“Committed to Newgate;” then, turning round in his saddle, he fixed his
eyes on Kelly, who, like a beast of prey, continued to hang upon the
track of his victim.
“Well, Dan,” cried he, “you may go home again now. I am afraid you 've
gained nothing this time but character.”
“Home!” muttered the wretch in a voice of agony; “is it face home after
this morning's work?”
“And why not, man? Take my word for it, the neighbors will be too much
afraid to meddle with you now.”
“Oh, Mister Barton! oh, darling! don't send me back there, for the love
of Heaven! Take me with you!” cried the miserable wretch, in tones of
heart-moving misery.
“Oh, young gentleman,” said he, taming towards me, and catching me by
the sleeve, “spake a word for me this day!”
“Don't you think he has enough of troubles of his own to think of, Dan?”
said Barton, with a tone of seeming kindliness. “Go back, man; go back!
there 's plenty of work before you in this very county. Don't lay your
hand on me, you scoundrel; your touch would pollute a hangman.”
The man fell back as if stunned at the sound of these words; his face
became livid, and his lips white as snow. He staggered a pace or two,
like a drunken man, and then stood stock-still, his eyes fixed upon the
road.
“Quick march!” said the sergeant.
The soldiers stepped out again; and as we turned the angle of the road,
about a mile farther, I beheld Kelly still standing in the self same
attitude we left him. Barton, after some order to the sergeant, soon
left us, and we continued our march till near nine o'clock, when the
party halted to breakfast. They pressed me to eat with every kind
entreaty, but I could taste nothing, and we resumed our road after half
an hour. But the day becoming oppressively hot, it was deemed better to
defer our march till near sunset; we stopped, then, during the noon,
in a shady thicket near the roadside, where the men, unbuckling their
knapsacks and loosening their stocks, lay down in the deep grass, either
chatting together or smoking. The sergeant made many attempts to draw
me into conversation, but my heart was too full of its own sensations
either to speak or listen; so he abandoned the pursuit with a good
grace, and betook himself to his pipe at the foot of a tree, where,
after its last whiff escaped, he sank into a heavy sleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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