At length--
"If you mean as to my health," said I, "I am very well."
"Ay, ay; but I don't mean that," replied Norcot. "How do you like your
quarters, my man? How do you like this sort of life, eh?"
"Considering all circumstances, it's well enough; as well as ought
reasonably to be expected," said I, in a tone meant to discourage
farther conversation on the subject. But he was not to be so put off.
"Ay, in the meantime," said he; "but wait you till we get to New South
Wales; you'll see a difference then, my man, I'm thinking. You'll be
kept working, from sunrise till sunset, up to the middle in mud and
water, with a chain about your neck. You'll be locked up in a dungeon at
night, fed upon mouldy biscuit, and, on the slightest fault, or without
any fault at all, be flogged within an inch of your life with a
cat-o'-nine-tails. How will ye like that, eh?"
"_That_ I certainly should not like," I replied. "But I hope you're
exaggerating a little." I knew he was.
"Not a bit of it," said Norcot. "Come here, Knuckler;" and he motioned
to a fellow-convict to come towards him. "I've been telling this young
cove here what he may expect when we reach our journey's end, but he
won't believe me." Having repeated the description of convict life which
he had just given me--
"Now, Knuckler, isn't that the truth?" he said.
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