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.
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