The Escape of the Notorious Sir William Heans by William Gosse Hay

It was an afternoon a year and two months after Carnt's evening at Magruder's, and he was to meet Heans at the tavern known as "Muster-Master-Mason's Place," at the top end of Macquarie Street, on the right of the old place of execution. It was a roughish house, frequented by sub-overseers, people with business in the prison, and turnkeys, and that he might catch the late-working clerk, Heans, when he could get it, armed himself with the after-sunset pass. Their reason for meeting to-night was one of some excitement. As for the place, it was handy to Mr. Carnt, and there was attention and a view! From its veranda you saw the town and bay (forsaken now of the heroic bomb-ships), and across the pretty rivulet, under your eyes, sat the heavy courtyards of the prison, gold of stone and black of bars. Heans, dismounting at the veranda, could see the women taking the air in their grey gowns and mutches--some sad and dark, some light and lackadaisical--like figures in a frowning box. A few were gazing up, past him, at the vast hills.

It was a close evening. Keeping the bridle in his hand, he carefully wiped a bench with a faded handkerchief, and sat down in the veranda. Out past the horse, his eye looked down with a glint of eagerness, a touch of the haggard, upon the gate of the near courtyard, and the foliaged bridge, by which Carnt would come. Sir William would show a certain agitation--in a word his gold eyeglass would drop on his breast--when his "acquaintance, Mr. Carnt," emerged lightly from that spy-holed port. Poor Carnt, with his secret sentiment and hidden feeling (Sir William would reflect) was "d----bly out-of-place" behind those gates.