uty-marshal in their passage through the lodge or entrance of the
prison.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CONTAINING FURTHER ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE CHILDREN ON WRETCHEDNESS.

Dinner being cheerfully discussed, and our adventurer expressing an eager
desire to know the history of the male and female who had acted as
squires or seconds to the champions of the King's Bench, Felton gratified
his curiosity to this effect:

"All that I know of Captain Clewline, previous to his commitment, is,
that he was a commander of a sloop of war, and bore the reputation of a
gallant officer; that he married the daughter of a rich merchant in the
city of London, against the inclination and without the knowledge of her
father, who renounced her for this act of disobedience; that the captain
consoled himself for the rigour of the parent, with the possession of the
lady, who was not only remarkably beautiful in person, but highly
accomplished in her mind, and amiable in her disposition. Such, a few
months ago, were those two persons whom you saw acting in such a vulgar
capacity. When they first entered the prison, they were undoubtedly the
handsomest couple mine eyes ever beheld, and their appearance won
universal respect even from the most brutal inhabitants of the jail.

"The captain, having unwarily involved himself as a security for a man to
whom he had lain under obligations, became liable for a considerable sum,
and his own father-in-law being the sole creditor of the bankrupt, took
this opportunity of wreaking vengeance upon him for having espoused his
daughter. He watched an opportunity until the captain had actually
stepped into the post-chaise with his lady for Portsmouth, where his ship
lay, and caused him to be arrested in the most public and shameful
manner. Mrs. Clewline had like to have sunk under the first transports
of her grief and mortification; but these subsiding, she had recourse to
personal solicitation. She went with her only child in her arms, a
lovely boy, to her father's door, and, being denied admittance, kneeled
down in the street, imploring his compassion in the most pathetic strain;
but this hard-hearted citizen, instead of recognising his child, and
taking the poor mourner to his bosom, insulted her from the window with
the most bitter reproach, saying, among other shocking expressions,
'Strumpet, take yourself away with your brat, otherwise I shall send for
the beadle, and have you to Bridewell.'

"