Pollock," said he, turning to a person beside him, "when there is
more sympathy for a rebel in his Majesty's jail, than respect for a
Government officer."

"I'll do it, sir,--I'll do it," cried the jailer; saying which he
motioned me to follow, while he muttered between his teeth, "there must
come an end to this, one day or other."

With that he unlocked a strongly barred gate, and led me along a narrow
passage; at the extremity of which he opened a door into a small and
rather comfortably furnished room.

"Here, sir," said he, "you 'll be better than where I have my orders to
put you; and in any case, I trust that our acquaintance will be but a
short one."

These were the first words of kindness I had heard for some time past. I
turned to thank the speaker; but already the door had closed, and he was
gone.

The quickly succeeding incidents of my life, the dark destiny that
seemed to track me, had given a reflective character to my mind while
I was yet a boy. The troubles and cares of life, that in manhood
serve only to mould and fashion character,--to call forth efforts of
endurance, of courage, or ability,--come upon us in early years with far
different effect and far different teaching. Every lesson tit deceit
and duplicity is a direct shock to some preconceived notion of faith and
honor; every punishment, whose severity in after years we had forgotten
in its justice, has to the eyes of youth a character of vindictive
cruelty. Looking only to effects, and never to causes, our views of
life are one-sided and imperfect; the better parts of our nature will
as often mislead us by false sympathy, as will the worst ones by their
pernicious tendency.

From the hour I quitted my father's house to the present, I had seen
nothing but what to me appeared the sufferings of a poor, defenceless
people at the hands of wanton tyranny and outrage. I had seen the
peasant's cabin burned because it had been a shelter to an outcast; I
had heard the loud and drunken denunciations of a ruffianly soldiery
against those who professed no other object, who acknowledged no other
wish, than liberty and equality; and in my heart I vowed a rooted hate
to the enemies of my country,--a vow that lost nothing of its bitterness
because it was made within the walls of a prison.

In reflections like these my evening passed on, and with it the greater
part of the night also. My mind was too much excited to permit me to
sleep, and I longed for d