reakfasting out of doors, Mr. Thornhill drove up in his chariot,
alighted, and inquired after my health with his usual air of
familiarity.

"Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate your
baseness."

"My dear sir," returned he, "I cannot understand what this means!"

"Go!" cried I. "Thou art a poor, pitiful wretch, and every way a liar;
but your meanness secures you from my anger!"

"I find," he said, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher
manner than I intended. My steward talks of driving for the rent, and it
is certain he knows his duty. Yet, still, I could wish to serve you, and
even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage."

"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "as to your marriage with any but my
daughter, that I never will consent to! And though your friendship could
raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would
I despise both."

"Depend upon it," returned he, "you shall feel the effects of this
insolence," and departed abruptly.

On the very next morning his steward came to demand my annual rent,
which, by reason of the accidents already related, I was unable to pay.
On the following day two officers of justice took me to the county gaol.

There is no situation, however wretched it seems, but has some sort of
comfort attending it; and I found mine in the help and kindness of a
fellow-prisoner, Mr. Jenkinson by name, who was awaiting trial for
several acts of cheating and roguery. I myself, indeed, had been one of
his victims.

The fortune of my family, who were lodged in the town, was wholly and
distressingly adverse. Olivia was ill, and longed for me to make my
submission to Mr. Thornhill by approving his marriage with Miss Wilmot.
When I had been confined a fortnight, Mr. Jenkinson brought me dreadful
news--Olivia was dead! And while yet my grief was fresh upon me my wife
came weeping to tell me that Sophia had been seized by ruffians and
carried off.

The sum of my miseries, thought, I, is now made up; nor is it in the
power of anything on earth to give me another pang. Yet another awaited
me. My eldest son, George, to whom I had written, went to Thornhill
Castle to punish our betrayer; he was attacked by the coward's servants,
injured one of them, and was brought into the very prison where I was
confined.

The enemy of my family had now triumphed completely. My only hope was in
a letter I had written to Sir William Thornhill, t