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"For insubordination! Pardon me, my dear young lady, did I understand you rightly?" "Yes, insubordination. He is her assigned servant, you know," said Sylvia, as if such a condition of things was the most ordinary in the world, "and if he misbehaves himself, she sends him back to the road-gang." The Reverend Mr. Meekin opened his mild eyes very wide indeed. "What an extraordinary anomaly!
One painful sight was a road-gang of convicts chained by the legs. They were certainly a villainous-looking set, mostly doubly convicted felons. Despair was depicted in the countenances of many. Jacob told me that he had known several who had been guilty of murder, that they might be hanged, and as they thought put out of their misery; others had committed suicide.
They were afraid of the natives also, and suffered much from hunger and thirst. Ben sometimes wished himself back with the road-gang. They at last did so much mischief that parties were sent out against them. Ben's comrade was taken, and Ben was wounded, but escaped by the speed of his horse. On on he went. He dared not turn back, for his foes were behind him.
A pardon would remove the taint of dishonor and restore him to honest citizenship; but a paroled man was known for an ex-con everywhere he might as well be back in the road-gang.
As he worked on the road old friends came by and tried to argue him out of his mood, even Bunker Hill suggested a compromise; but he only listened sulkily, a slow smile on his lips, a gleam of smouldering hatred in his eyes. So the winter passed by and as spring came on the road-gang drew near to Murray.
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