one risk, which is that of discovery. But besides the
small characters, in which my residence in Mr. Fairford's house enabled
me to excel, for the purpose of transferring as many scroll sheets as
possible to a huge sheet of stamped paper, I have, as I have elsewhere
intimated, had hitherto the comfortable reflection that if the record
of my misfortunes should fall into the hands of him by whom they are
caused, they would, without harming any one, show him the real character
and disposition of the person who has become his prisoner--perhaps his
victim. Now, however, that other names, and other characters, are to be
mingled with the register of my own sentiments, I must take additional
care of these papers, and keep them in such a manner that, in case
of the least hazard of detection, I may be able to destroy them at a
moment's notice. I shall not soon or easily forget the lesson I have
been taught, by the prying disposition which Cristal Nixon, this man's
agent and confederate, manifested at Brokenburn, and which proved the
original cause of my sufferings.

My laying aside the last sheet of my journal hastily was occasioned by
the unwonted sound of a violin, in the farmyard beneath my windows. It
will not appear surprising to those who have made music their study,
that, after listening to a few notes, I became at once assured that the
musician was no other than the itinerant, formerly mentioned as present
at the destruction of Joshua Geddes's stake-nets, the superior delicacy
and force of whose execution would enable me to swear to his bow amongst
a whole orchestra. I had the less reason to doubt his identity, because
he played twice over the beautiful Scottish air called Wandering Willie;
and I could not help concluding that he did so for the purpose of
intimating his own presence, since what the French called the nom de
guerre of the performer was described by the tune.

Hope will catch at the most feeble twig for support in extremity. I knew
this man, though deprived of sight, to be bold, ingenious, and perfectly
capable of acting as a guide. I believed I had won his goodwill,
by having, in a frolic, assumed the character of his partner; and I
remembered that in a wild, wandering, and disorderly course of life,
men, as they become loosened from the ordinary bonds of civil society,
hold those of comradeship more closely sacred; so that honour is
sometimes found among thieves, and faith and attachment in such as the
la