sons were Mr. Falkland and Mr.
Forester. The latter I knew to be a man austere and inexorable towards
those whom he deemed vicious. He piqued himself upon being insensible to
those softer emotions, which, he believed, answered no other purpose
than to seduce us from our duty. Mr. Falkland, on the contrary, was a
man of the acutest sensibility; hence arose his pleasures and his pains,
his virtues and his vices. Though he were the bitterest enemy to whom I
could possibly be exposed, and though no sentiments of humanity could
divert or control the bent of his mind, I yet persuaded myself, that he
was more likely than his kinsman, to visit in idea the scene of my
dungeon, and to feel impelled to alleviate my sufferings.

This conjecture was by no means calculated to serve as balm to my mind.
My thoughts were full of irritation against my persecutor. How could I
think kindly of a man, in competition with the gratification of whose
ruling passion my good name or my life was deemed of no consideration? I
saw him crushing the one, and bringing the other into jeopardy, with a
quietness and composure on his part that I could not recollect without
horror. I knew not what were his plans respecting me. I knew not whether
he troubled himself so much as to form a barren wish for the
preservation of one whose future prospects he had so iniquitously
tarnished. I had hitherto been silent as to my principal topic of
recrimination. But I was by no means certain, that I should consent to
go out of the world in silence, the victim of this man's obduracy and
art. In every view I felt my heart ulcerated with a sense of his
injustice; and my very soul spurned these pitiful indulgences, at a time
that he was grinding me into dust with the inexorableness of his
vengeance.

I was influenced by these sentiments in my reply to the jailor; and I
found a secret pleasure in pronouncing them in all their bitterness. I
viewed him with a sarcastic smile, and said, I was glad to find him of a
sudden become so humane: I was not however without some penetration as
to the humanity of a jailor, and could guess at the circumstances by
which it was produced. But he might tell his employer, that his cares
were fruitless: I would accept no favours from a man that held a halter
about my neck; and had courage enough to endure the worst both in time
to come and now.--The jailor looked at me with astonishment, and turning
upon his heel, exclaimed, "Well done, my cock