He became strangely composed all of a sudden; and said, "God forgive all concerned in this--but one--but one." He then bowed respectfully, and like a gentleman, to the judge and the jury, and walked out of the dock with the air of a man who had parted with emotion, and would march to the gallows now without flinching.
The counsel for the Crown required that the forged document should be impounded.
"I was about to make the same demand," said the prisoner's counsel.
The judge snubbed them both, and said it was a matter of course.
Robert Penfold spent a year in separate confinement, and then, to cure him of its salutary effect (if any), was sent on board the hulk _Vengeance,_ and was herded with the greatest miscreants in creation.
They did not reduce him to their level, but they injured his mind.

And, before half his sentence had expired, he sailed for a penal colony, a man with a hot coal in his bosom, a creature imbittered, poisoned; hoping little, believing little, fearing little, and hating much.
He took with him the prayer-book his mother had given him when he was ordained deacon.

But he seldom read beyond the fly-leaf.

There the poor lady had written at large her mother's heart, and her pious soul aspiring heavenward for her darling son.

This, when all seemed darkest, he would sometimes run to with moist eyes.