as was believed, though
by another nominally, contrived that Ratcliffe should be arrested for
debt; and, after harassing him with intricate forms of business, had
finally caused him to be conveyed to prison. Ratcliffe was thus
involved in his own troubles at the time; and afterwards supposed that,
without written documents to support his evidence, he could not be of
much service to the re-establishment of my wife's reputation. Six months
after his services in the night-escape from the prison, I saw him, and
pressed him to take the money so justly forfeited to him by Manasseh's
perfidy. He would, however, be persuaded to take no more than paid his
debts. A second and a third time his debts were paid by myself and
Pierpoint. But the same habits of intemperance and dissolute pleasure
which led him into these debts, finally ruined his constitution; and he
died, though otherwise of a fine generous manly nature, a martyr to
dissipation at the early age of twenty-nine. With respect to his prison
confinement, it was so frequently recurring in his life, and was
alleviated by so many indulgences, that he scarcely viewed it as a
hardship: having once been an officer of the prison, and having thus
formed connections with the whole official establishment, and done
services to many of them, and being of so convivial a turn, he was, even
as a prisoner, treated with distinction, and considered as a privileged
son of the house.]

It was just striking twelve o'clock as we entered the lane where the
carriage was drawn up. Rain, about the profoundest I had ever witnessed,
was falling. Though near to midsummer, the night had been unusually dark
to begin with, and from the increasing rain had become much more so. We
could see nothing; and at first we feared that some mistake had occurred
as to the station of the carriage--in which case we might have sought
for it vainly through the intricate labyrinth of the streets in that
quarter. I first descried it by the light of a torch, reflected
powerfully from the large eyes of the leaders. All was ready.
Horse-keepers were at the horses' heads. The postilions were mounted;
each door had the steps let down: Agnes was lifted in: Hannah and I
followed: Pierpoint mounted his horse; and at the word--Oh! how strange
a word!--'_All's right_,' the horses sprang off like leopards, a manner
ill suited to the slippery pavement of a narrow street. At that moment,
but we valued it little indeed, we heard the p