HULLOH!’ said Mr. Jarvis; ‘did you hear that gun? There’s another of them there conwicks escaped.’

‘Poor fellow!’ ejaculated Mr. Jarvis’s better half; ‘and I hope as he’ll get away.’

Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis were the proprietors of a travelling theatrical show, and this conversation occurred late one winter afternoon, as the caravan jolted along over the rough roads of Dartmoor.

Mr. Jarvis’s ‘temple of the drama,’ packed up very small, and the whole affair was very comfortably accommodated in two living-vans and a baggage-waggon.

Mrs. Jarvis was sitting inside the first van with the door open, and Mr. Jarvis was walking behind, to keep himself warm and to enjoy his afternoon pipe. The company had been dissolved at the last town, for the season was over, and the Jarvises were making their way as fast as they could to London, to complete their arrangements for a metropolitan circuit, with a new drama and a specially organized company.

Their last tour had not been a great success. The attendance at the country fairs had fallen off, and in small places where they had built the theatre up and stayed for a week, they had hardly cleared expenses. The new fashion of the London companies touring, combined with the number of first-class theatres rapidly rising in the provincial towns, was slowly but surely dealing a death-blow to the ‘booth’ business.

To add to the misfortunes of the worthy couple, their only son, Shakspeare, the most valuable member of the company, had been down with a wasting fever, and was so ill when they left town that he was unable to be brought with them.

‘Ah!’ Mrs. Jarvis would exclaim, with a sigh, when she counted the takings after each performance, ‘there ain’t no luck about the show without Shakspeare—Shakspeare allus was the draw, father, and we shan’t do no good without him.’

‘Poor chap!’ answered Mr. Jarvis. ‘I’ope as he’s a-goin’ on all right. It don’t seem like the old show without him—do it, mother?’

‘No, it don’t. And what we should ha’ done if we hadn’t ha’ had sich a lodger as Mrs. Smith to leave to look arter him I don’t know! He writes as she’s been like a mother to him, and nussed him till he can almost stand on his ‘ed as easy as ever, and he’s turned his fust caterine wheel last Saturday, and ‘as been better ever since.’

‘He’s a beautiful scholard, ain’t he?’ said Mr. Jarvis, as he took Shakspeare’s letter from his wife, and looked at it reverently.

‘With the eddication he’s got he’ll do something for the dramar some day, as’ll astonish the purfession. Hulloh, there’s the gun again! Why, they’re coming this way!’

As Mr. Jarvis spoke a body of men came running along, peering into the hedges, and looking on every side of them.

The fog was deepening as the darkness came on, and the snow lay thick on road and hedge and tree, so that it was no easy matter to distinguish anything at a distance.

As the men came up with the caravan they stopped, and the leader, an armed warder, addressed Mr. Jarvis.

‘Seen anybody go by here, governor?’

‘What, one of your gents?’ answered Mr. Jarvis. ‘No, that I ain’t. There ain’t ne’er a one passed here.’

The officer hesitated.

‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting us look inside,’ he said presently.

‘Look, and welcome, master! answered Mrs. Jarvis. Then, bridling up, she added, ‘A pretty fine thing, indeed! What d’ye think we should want a-harbourin’ conwicks for?’

The officer, without vouchsafing a reply, searched the two living-vans thoroughly, and then, satisfied that his prey was not in them, apologized, and held a council of war among his followers.

If the convict had not passed the caravan he could not be on that road. The man who had informed him he had seen a convict running that way must have been mistaken. The snow was so hard and crisp on the roadway that no footsteps were visible. It would be better to turn back and try in another direction.

The warder and his party returned, and the caravan went jolting on its way.

Hardly had the pursuers disappeared in the mist, when Mrs. Jarvis’s attention was attracted to the baggage-waggon in the rear. The tarpaulin flung over it was moving.

This waggon was unoccupied, the horse following mechanically the vehicles ahead of him.

Mr. Jarvis, attracted by his wife’s exclamation, looked, and he too distinctly saw the tarpaulin move.

He stood still in the roadway till the horse came up to him, and stopped it.

As he did so he distinctly heard a low groan.

‘Now then, governor!’ he exclaimed, ‘whoever you are, come out o’ that.’

No answer, only a groan deeper than before.

The two living-vans had turned a sharp corner of the road by this time, and there was no one in sight.

Mr. Jarvis climbed up on to the waggon and pulled the tarpaulin back.

As he did so he uttered an exclamation of astonishment.

There lay the escaped convict, his face deadly pale, his eyes half shut, and his hands clenched.

Mr. Jarvis shook him.

‘Here, master, this won’t do. Come, you must get out of this. We can’t have no gaol-birds here.’

The man opened his eyes.

‘Oh, sir, for God’s sake help me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t give me up!—don’t give me up!’

‘I don’t want to give you up; but I can’t harbour ye, ye know—it’s a crime.’

‘Let me lie here, then, till I can walk!’ exclaimed the man. ‘In dodging behind the hedges I slipped and twisted my ankle. I managed to crawl into the waggon and hide among these things, or I should have been caught.’

‘And I’ve been and turned the officers back, and declared as I hadn’t seen ye!’ exclaimed Mr. Jarvis, looking very uncomfortable.

‘Hear me!’ exclaimed the man, raising himself on his arm with difficulty, for the pain from his twisted ankle was excruciating. ‘Hear my story, and then do with me as you will. I’m an escaped convict, but I am innocent of the crime I was condemned for. My time had nearly expired—in a few weeks more I should have been out on a ticket of leave. Unfortunately I incurred the hatred of one of the warders. I refused to help him in a dishonest act. He never forgave me. Twice he found tobacco in my cell. He put it there! For the second offence I lost all my privileges. I was not allowed to write to my wife or to hear from her for nine months, and I lost my chance of a ticket.’

‘Poor devil!’ said Mr. Jarvis.

‘I was maddened with rage. Up in London my wife lay ill, perhaps dying—for her last letter was written in a hand that told its own weakness, though she spoke hopefully. I had counted the days till I should see her again—and now, oh! sir, can you blame me if when I saw at last a chance of escape I seized it? That chance came to-day. I escaped from the guard who were marching us to some outdoor work, and you know the rest. I am here at your mercy; but for God’s sake save me! Think of my poor wife! Think——’

The man spoke no more.

In his excitement he had moved too hastily and hurt the twisted ankle; the anguish was so great that he fainted dead away.

‘There, there, my poor fellow!—don’t you fidget. You lie still. We’ll carry you safe to London, or my name is not Lizer Jarvis.’

The speaker was Mrs. Jarvis, and the person addressed was the escaped convict.

Mr. Jarvis had consulted his better half before deciding what to do, and when she had heard the story, the good soul’s motherly heart went out to the poor man, and she determined he should not be given up.

So the baggage-waggon was brought up close to the living-van, and the poor fellow was lifted carefully out and put up snugly in a corner and covered over with a rug, and Mrs. Jarvis, who was clever at sprains and bruises, soon found out what was the matter with his ankle, and bound it up with cold-water bandages.

‘Now, all you’ve got to do is to keep still,’ she said, ‘and lie close, and we’ll get up to our crib in London, and there we can rig you out, and then you must look out for yourself.’

And that night, as the vans went jolting along the road, the convict slept calmly, a free man for the first time for six long years, and he dreamed that his wife was sitting by his side.

When they halted for the night the horses were taken out. The convict awoke with a start.

‘Where am I, Bess?’ he exclaimed.

‘You’re all right,’ answered Mrs. Jarvis cheerily. ‘You stop where you are. Nobody won’t interfere with you.’

‘So his wife’s name’s Bess, is it?’ thought the good lady to herself. ‘It’s a purty name. It’s the name o’ our lodger, Mrs. Smith, as has been so good to Shakspeare. Lor’, how I do long to give that there boy a good motherly hug—bless him!’

Then she walked across to the snug corner where the convict lay.

‘Poor chap!’ she muttered; ‘I hope he’ll find his wife alive., He don’t look a bit like a convict, and I believe as he’s quite as hinnercent as he makes out. If faces goes for anything, I should say he was a born gentleman.’