rafters. Here he had taken his young
wife, and they used to sit together, so he said, in the sunny oriel over
the water, and he had sworn to give up the cards. That was but three
years since, and then all had gone across the green cloth in one mad
night in St. James's Street. Their friends had deserted them, and the
poor little woman was lodged in Holborn near by, and came every morning
with some little dainty to the bailiff's, for her liege lord who had so
used her. He pressed me to share a fowl with him one day, but it would
have choked me. God knows where she got the money to buy it. I saw her
once hanging on his neck in the hall, he trying to shield her from the
impudent gaze of his fellow-lodgers.

But some of them lived like lords in luxury, with never a seeming
regret; and had apartments on the first floor, and had their tea and
paper in bed, and lounged out the morning in a flowered nightgown, and
the rest of the day in a laced coat. These drank the bailiff's best port
and champagne, and had nothing better than a frown or haughty look for
us, when we passed them at the landing. Whence the piper was paid I knew
not, and the bailiff cared not. But the bulk of the poor gentlemen were
a merry crew withal, and had their wit and their wine at table, and knew
each other's histories (and soon enough ours) by heart. They betted away
the week at billiards or whist or picquet or loo, and sometimes measured
swords for diversion, tho' this pastime the bailiff was greatly set
against; as calculated to deprive him of a lodger.

Although we had no money for gaming, and little for wine or tobacco, the
captain and I were received very heartily into the fraternity. After
one afternoon of despondency we both voted it the worst of bad policy
to remain aloof and nurse our misfortune, and spent our first evening
in making acquaintances over a deal of very thin "debtor's claret." I
tossed long that night on the hard cot, listening to the scurrying rats
among the roof-timbers. They ran like the thoughts in my brain. And
before I slept I prayed again and again that God would put it in my
power to reward him whom charity for a friendless foundling had brought
to a debtor's prison.

Not so much as a single complaint or reproach had passed his lips!

CHAPTER XXV. THE RESCUE

Perchance, my dears, if John Paul and I had not been cast by accident
in a debtor's prison, this great man might never have bestowed upon
our country those