he darkness paced my prison floor. Even
in these terrible hours hope did not utterly forsake me. The swift
revolution of Fortune's wheel had indeed left me crushed and mangled in
its track, but I was not actually ground to powder. As I became more
familiar with the reality of my situation, I began to take a calmer and
more hopeful view of the future. As morning dawned, I had almost
persuaded myself that I had only to see the manager of the firm who
held the bills, for uttering which I had been arrested, and make
certain explanations and proposals, to regain my liberty. With
impatience, therefore, I awaited the hour, which I knew must come, when
I would be removed from London to Scotland; and when, at last, the
detective who was to accompany me opened my cell door, I almost
welcomed him as a friend. We booked at Euston Square Station for the
place which I intended to have gone to, under such widely different
circumstances, the previous evening. My guardian performed his duty
during this long and painful journey with kindness and consideration,
and did not propose to put handcuffs upon me.

Arrived at our destination, I was marched through the police and
sheriffs office to the common prison, and, to my utter astonishment and
dismay, was prohibited for nine or ten days to have any communication
with my friends. The single ray of hope which had sustained me on my
weary journey, and illumined my darkest hour, was thus pitilessly
excluded, and for the first time since my arrest I began to realise my
true position. When I learnt that my arrest and incarceration in jail
was noticed in all the newspapers, I felt that I was utterly and
hopelessly ruined. No language could describe the anguish I endured as
I thought of my wife and my friends, of the disgrace and humiliation
which I had brought upon them, and of the separation, worse than death
itself, which was in store for us. Yet, strange as it may appear, amid
all the mental torture I then and afterwards endured, I also
experienced a certain sense of relief in my mind from considerations
which would scarcely be expected to operate on one in my situation.
Those only who have been in difficulties in business, who have borne
the ceaseless strain on body and mind which the burden of obligations,
each day rushing forward with ever increasing velocity for liquidation,
entails upon those who are honestly striving to stem the ebbing tide of
fortune, can fully understand how relieved I