that human nature always seems to require under suffering. If he met no direct manifestations of pity, neither did he see any savage exultation expressed, nor hear a single reproachful epithet. The character of the mob, if it could be called by such a name, was that of attentive subordination.
The constable was in the act of lowering the upper plank, when Benjamin, who had pressed close to the side of the prisoner, said, in his hoarse tones, as if seeking for some cause to create a quarrel-
"Where away, master constable, is the use to be found of clapping a man in them here bilboes? it neither stops his grog nor hurts his back; what for is it that you do the thing?"
"'Tis the sentence of the court, Mr. Penguillum, and there's law for it, I s'pose."
"Ay, ay, I know that there's law for the thing; but where away do you find the use, I say? it does no harm, and it only keeps a man by the heels for the small matter of two glasses."
"Is it no harm, Benny Pump," said Natty, raising his eyes with a piteous look to the face of the steward—"is it no harm to show off a man in his seventy-first year, like a tamed bear, for the settlers to look on! Is it no harm to put an old soldier, that has sarved through the war of 'fifty-six, and seen the inimy in the 'seventy-six business, into a place like this, where the boys can point at him and say, I have known the time when he was a spictacle for the country! Is it no harm to bring down the pride of an honest man to be the equal of the beasts of the forest!"
Benjamin stared about him fiercely, and, could he have found a single face that expressed contumely, he would have been prompt to quarrel with its owner; but meeting every where with looks of sobriety, and occasionally of commiseration, he
