ORIGINAL.

SOUGHT AND FOUND.

A STORY OF A MOTHER'S LOVE.

BY S. C. MERRIGATE.

CHAP. I.-THE PRISONER.

Down seven stone steps, crowned with an iron door, the heavy, sullen footsteps of two men, step by step, with a clank of iron between them, were heard. Dear daylight shed its last sweet beam on that iron door, and for ten long years the last it could bestow on one of those who walked there. But not the sunlight parting sadly with him at that door-for it grew faint to death there-nor the cold cheer of windowless granite, the dull light of the lantern, nor the savage face (more savage in that light) of his conductor, sent any thrill to the young felon's heart, or touched it with one new emotion. Red wrath was in his scornful face, wrath in his proud heart, wrath in his impatient gestures, and on his blasphemous tongue.

"Growl, young tiger! we'll give you a nest of granite, and a steel collar, and a bed, where your tongue may tire before it gets an answer!"

A gnash of his teeth was the young man's only answer to the mocking of his grim guardian.

"He-he-cub! snarl and gibber! I owe you a little, top o' the law's account; and now y're here, see if I don't quit the score!" and the brutal keeper gave the gyves a wrench on the wrist of his prisoner, that made him gnash again for very pain.

Clank, clank, tramp, tramp, along a low, narrow, dark passage, flanked on either hand by narrow cells with grated openings into this dismal hall, the train proceeded. Dimly, the haggard faces of old criminals showed through the gratings, some with eager looks, half-hopeful, till the clank of irons told VOL. II.-21.

them that the unwonted light came to lead another victim into, not out of, that foul place; and some, with unquenched hate still glaring in their eyes. Long, shrivelled arms, thrust through the bars, now writhed with scornful gestures, now stretched supplicatingly to the passers; and a low chuckle of delight, out of the dark that showed no form or feature, came from one cell as the clank of chains went by-a fiendish triumph from the "Murderer's Grave," a cell devoted to the last hours of the condemned-for there a lost wretch greeted thus each newer victim as he passed. At the end of this black passage a huge door, whose great bolts sunk in triple beds on the four sides that bounded it, glided back and let them pass; and here, as the gate fell to with a sullen clang, the keeper paused.

Looking into a cell on his right, to which a current of fresh air, and a little imprisoned light came from a deep window, high up out of reach, the jailor shook his head, muttering to himself" No, no, that's too extravagant; a winder's too nice; he shall go farther."

A few steps more brought them to a dungeon, where no kind beam had ever found its way, and no sweet breath could come; a low, cold cell, with a grated opening twice as deep as it was broad, where food could only be taken piecemeal through the bars; the very turnkey set not his foot there in his rounds. The cell had been long vacant, and would have remained so now, but for the spite of the official monarch of this cheerless realm; for by a little resistance to the chain that was being fastened on his hands, the prisoner gained that dark ruler's displeasure, which was vented by thrusting him into this den. of night. Mockingly the turnkey thrust the young man in, and before loosing the fetters from his prisoner's limbs, he raised the lantern to his face with a black grin, as if it were a joy to gloat over a fellow-being's misery. But he saw something there in the sudden calmness of stern and horrible purpose, that made his own dark features ghastly. A rattle of the chain as it fell from his hand, told of his terror; another, as it arose with the two arms of the desperate youth, and fell with a crash upon the coward's shoulder, told what cause he had to fear!