“Well, yes; he had a mother; and though she was a queer one too, she loved him dearly.  She was the cleverest woman, Weasel used to say, as ever he had to do with; and a perfect lady too, mind you.  She worked to get the poor lad off like a slave; and when all was over, instead of breaking down, as most would, she swallowed her pride, and went down on her bended knees to that old miserly devil, Trevethick, the prosecutor, and to his son-in-law, Coe, likewise:  they lived down Cross Key way—­where was it?—­at Gethin—­and begged and prayed him to join in petitioning in her son’s favor.  She got down there the very day after his lying daughter was married to Solomon Coe, he as has got Dunloppel, and is a big man now.  But he’ll never be any thing but a scurvy lot, if he was to be king o’ Cornwall.  I shall never forget the way he insulted that poor young fellow when he was took up.  Damme, I would have given a ten-pound note to have had him charged with something, and I’d ha’ seen that the handcuffs weren’t none too big for his wrists neither.”

“And this Trevethick refused to help the lady, did he?”

“Why, of course he did.  He broke her heart, poor soul.  I saw her when she passed through Plymouth afterward, and she looked twenty years older than before that trial.  Even then she didn’t give the matter up, but laid it before the crown.  But poor Yorke had offended government—­helped some fool or another through one of them public examinations; he had wits enough for any thing, had that young fellow.  But there—­I can’t a-bear to talk about him; and yet somehow I can’t help doing on it when I get into this room.  He sat just where that gentleman sits yonder.  I think I see him now, smoking the best of cigars, one of which he offered to me—­for he was free as free; but I was necessitated to restore it, for I couldn’t take a gift from one as I was just a-going to nab.  ’Thank you kindly,’ says I, ’but let us have no misunderstanding and no obligation.’  Poor fellow! poor fellow!”

No more was said about the case of Richard Yorke; but it was evidently a standing topic with the chairman of the George and Vulture club.  A yearning to behold and embrace that mother who had done and suffered so much for his sake took possession of Richard’s soul.  His heart had been steeled against her when he found harbored under her roof the objects of his rage and loathing; but he felt now that that must have come to pass with some intention of benefit to himself.  The very truth, indeed, flashed upon him that she entertained some plan of frustrating his revenge against them, with the idea of protecting him from the consequences that were likely to ensue from it; and he forgave her, while he hated his foes the more.  He would carry out his design to the uttermost, but very cautiously, and with a prudence that he would certainly not have used had his own safety been alone concerned; and then, when he had avenged himself and