The two had fought it with a determination apparent to every bystander, and now, on the last day of the trial, the counsel for the prosecution rose to sum up his case.  He was listened to with attention, and his speech was effective.  The theme was the individual who, after forgery and embezzlement, had taken French leave, quitting a post of trust and credit for regions where he hoped to enjoy his ill-gotten gains in peace and quietness.  The regions had proved inhospitable, and a sheriff had escorted the unlucky adventurer with that which was not his own back to the spot whence he had started.  His transgression was now to be traced from the moment—­day or night, or sunrise or sunset; what mattered the moment?—­when the thought passed through his brain, “Why should I plod on like other men?”

“‘Passed through,’ did I say?—­nay, it tarried; at first like a visitor who will one day take his leave, then a cherished inmate, and at last lord and master of every crevice of that petty mansion!  It dwelled there, and day by day it fed itself with remembered examples.  ’There was Tom, over on the Eastern Shore, grew tired, too, of working for his employers,—­and he robbed the till one night, and got off on a sloop to the Havana, and now they say he has a pirate ship of his very own!  And Dick.  Dick got tired, too, in a tan-yard in Alexandria, and when his master sent him on a mission to Washington, he took his foot in his hand and went farther.  He had his expenses in his pocket, so why not?  He’s prospering now in a bigger and gayer town than Alexandria!  And Harry.  Harry was more trusted than them all, but he, too, got tired—­in a warehouse at Rocket’s—­of plod, plod, plod! serve, serve, serve!  So he forged a name, and took the gold that lay beneath his hand, tore up his indentures, and fled in the night-time—­over the hills and far away!  He’s a rich man now, somewhere near the sunset, rich and great, with clerks of his own.  He had the advantage of education, had Harry!  Examples!  Examples thick as hops!  What’s Buonaparte himself but a poor Corsican lieutenant that stole an empire?  I’ll be bold, too.  I’ll steal, and then I’ll steal away!’

“So scullion soul to pliant body.  His thought is father to his deed, and there is the usual resemblance between son and parent.  What matters it that he has lived in his employer’s house, and has found him no Egyptian taskmaster, but a benefactor, lavish of favours?  What matters it that he has in charge things of trust and moment which, by miscarrying, will work distress to many?  What matters it that others are about him, engaged in this same drudgery of doing one’s duty, to whom, should he succeed in villainy as he trusts to do, his example will remain, a wrecker’s light to entice the storm-tossed upon a rocky shore?  What matters it,—­I am told, gentlemen, that the prisoner has a good and industrious sister,—­what matters it that rarely, rarely, is there ill-doing without, somewhere