them in a distrest condition; now, though I hope all your fears will prove ill grounded, yet, that I may relieve you as much as possible from them, be assured that, as nothing can give me more real misery than to observe so tender and loving a concern in a master, to whose goodness I owe so many obligations, and whom I so sincerely love, so nothing can afford me equal pleasure with my contributing to lessen or to remove it.  Be convinced, therefore, if you can place any confidence in my promise, that I will employ my little fortune, which you know to be not entirely inconsiderable, in the support of this your little family.  Should any misfortune, which I pray Heaven avert, happen to you before you have better provided for these little ones, I will be myself their father, nor shall either of them ever know distress if it be any way in my power to prevent it.  Your younger daughter I will provide for, and as for my little prattler, your elder, as I never yet thought of any woman for a wife, I will receive her as such at your hands; nor will I ever relinquish her for another.”  Heartfree flew to his friend, and embraced him with raptures of acknowledgment.  He vowed to him that he had eased every anxious thought of his mind but one, and that he must carry with him out of the world.  “O Friendly!” cried he, “it is my concern for that best of women, whom I hate myself for having ever censured in my opinion.  O Friendly! thou didst know her goodness; yet, sure, her perfect character none but myself was ever acquainted with.  She had every perfection, both of mind and body, which Heaven hath indulged to her whole sex, and possessed all in a higher excellence than nature ever indulged to another in any single virtue.  Can I bear the loss of such a woman?  Can I bear the apprehensions of what mischiefs that villain may have done to her, of which death is perhaps the lightest?” Friendly gently interrupted him as soon as he saw any opportunity, endeavouring to comfort him on this head likewise, by magnifying every circumstance which could possibly afford any hopes of his seeing her again.

By this kind of behaviour, in which the young man exemplified so uncommon an height of friendship, he had soon obtained in the castle the character of as odd and silly a fellow as his master.  Indeed they were both the byword, laughing-stock, and contempt of the whole place.

The sessions now came on at the Old Bailey.  The grand jury at Hicks’s-hall had found the bill of indictment against Heartfree, and on the second day of the session he was brought to his trial; where, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of Friendly and the honest old female servant, the circumstances of the fact corroborating the evidence of Fireblood, as well as that of Wild, who counterfeited the most artful reluctance at appearing against his old friend Heartfree, the jury found the prisoner guilty.

Wild had now accomplished his scheme; for as to remained, it was certainly unavoidable, seeing Heartfree was entirely void of interest with the and was besides convicted on a statute the infringers of which could hope no pardon.