Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851. Various

them, you might as well have expected that the widows and orphans of the Reign of Terror would have pitied Dr Guillotin when he slid through the grooves of his own deadly machine. And even the tinker, itinerant, ragamuffin vagabond as he was, felt ashamed to be found with the pattern boy! Lenny's head sank again on his breast, heavily as if it had been of lead. Some few minutes thus passed, when the unhappy prisoner became aware of the presence of another spectator to his shame: he heard no step, but he saw a shadow thrown over the sward. He held his breath, and would not look up, with some vague idea that if he refused to see he might escape being seen.

      CHAPTER IX

      "Per Bacco!" said Dr Riccabocca, putting his hand on Lenny's shoulder, and bending down to look into his face – "Per Bacco! my young friend, do you sit here from choice or necessity?"

      Lenny slightly shuddered, and winced under the touch of one whom he had hitherto regarded with a sort of superstitious abhorrence.

      "I fear," resumed Riccabocca, after waiting in vain for an answer to his question, "that, though the situation is charming, you did not select it yourself. What is this?" – and the irony of the tone vanished – "what is this, my poor boy? You have been bleeding, and I see that those tears which you try to cheek come from a deep well. Tell me, povero fanciullo mio, (the sweet Italian vowels, though Lenny did not understand them, sounded softly and soothingly,) – tell me, my child, how all this happened. Perhaps I can help you – we have all erred; we should all help each other."

      Lenny's heart, that just before had seemed bound in brass, found itself a way as the Italian spoke thus kindly, and the tears rushed down; but he again stopped them, and gulped out sturdily, —

      "I have not done no wrong; it ben't my fault – and 'tis that which kills me!" concluded Lenny, with a burst of energy.

      "You have not done wrong? Then," said the philosopher, drawing out his pocket-handkerchief with great composure, and spreading it on the ground – "then I may sit beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over sin, but I can lie down on equal terms with misfortune."

      Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words, but enough of their general meaning was apparent to make him cast a grateful glance on the Italian. Riccabocca resumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief, "I have a right to your confidence, my child, for I have been afflicted in my day: yet I too say with thee, 'I have not done wrong.' Cospetto!" (and here the Dr seated himself deliberately, resting one arm on the side column of the Stocks, in familiar contact with the captive's shoulder, while his eye wandered over the lovely scene around) – "Cospetto! my prison, if they had caught me, would not have had so fair a look-out as this. But, to be sure, it is all one: there are no ugly loves, and no handsome prisons!"