warning which I had already received
seemed to intimate, that my own personal liberty might be endangered by
an open appearance in Owen's behalf. Owen entertained the same
apprehension, and, in the exaggeration of his terror, assured me that a
Scotchman, rather than run the risk of losing a farthing by an
Englishman, would find law for arresting his wife, children, man-servant,
maidservant, and stranger within his household. The laws concerning debt,
in most countries, are so unmercifully severe, that I could not
altogether disbelieve his statement; and my arrest, in the present
circumstances, would have been a _coup-de-grace_ to my father's affairs.
In this dilemma, I asked Owen if he had not thought of having recourse to
my father's other correspondent in Glasgow, Mr. Nicol Jarvie?

"He had sent him a letter," he replied, "that morning; but if the
smooth-tongued and civil house in the Gallowgate* had used him thus, what
was to be expected from the cross-grained crab-stock in the Salt-Market?

* [A street in the old town of Glasgow.]

You might as well ask a broker to give up his percentage, as expect a
favour from him without the _per contra._ He had not even," Owen said,
"answered his letter though it was put into his hand that morning as he
went to church." And here the despairing man-of-figures threw himself
down on his pallet, exclaiming,--"My poor dear master! My poor dear
master! O Mr. Frank, Mr. Frank, this is all your obstinacy!--But God
forgive me for saying so to you in your distress! It's God's disposing,
and man must submit."

My philosophy, Tresham, could not prevent my sharing in the honest
creature's distress, and we mingled our tears,--the more bitter on my
part, as the perverse opposition to my father's will, with which the
kind-hearted Owen forbore to upbraid me, rose up to my conscience as the
cause of all this affliction.

In the midst of our mingled sorrow, we were disturbed and surprised by a
loud knocking at the outward door of the prison. I ran to the top of the
staircase to listen, but could only hear the voice of the turnkey,
alternately in a high tone, answering to some person without, and in a
whisper, addressed to the person who had guided me hither--"She's
coming--she's coming," aloud; then in a low key, "O hon-a-ri! O hon-a-ri!
what'll she do now?--Gang up ta stair, and hide yourself ahint ta
Sassenach shentleman's ped.--She's coming as fast as she can.--Ahellanay!
it's my lord prov