estion ever came to trial, was as clear as
noonday; not less clear was it that he knew this himself.

"I must go back at once to town," thought I. "I will surrender myself to
the law. If a compromise be impossible, I will perish at the stake."

I forgot there was no stake; but there was wool-carding, and
oakum-picking, and wheel-treading, and oyster-shell pounding, and other
small plays of this nature, infinitely more degrading to humanity than
all the cruelties of our barbarous ancestors.

Now, in no record of lives of adventure had I met any account of such
trials as these. The Silvio Pellicos of Pentonville are yet unwritten
martyrs. Prison discipline would vulgarize the grandest epic that ever
was conceived "Anything rather than this," said I, aloud. "Proscribed,
outlawed, hunted down, but never, gray-coated and hair-clipped, shall a
Potts be sentenced to the 'crank,' or black-holed as refractory!--Bring
me my bill," cried I, in a voice of indignant anger. "I will go forth
into the world of darkness and tempest; I will meet the storm and the
hurricane; better all the conflict of the elements than man's--than
man's--" I was n't exactly sure what; but there was no need of the word,
for a gust of wind had just flattened my umbrella in my face as I issued
forth, and left me breathless, as the door closed behind me.

CHAPTER V. THE ROSARY AT INISTIOGE

As I walked onward against the swooping wind and the plashing rain, I
felt a sort of heroic ardor in the notion of breasting the adverse waves
of life so boldly. It is not every fellow could do this,--throw his
knapsack on his shoulder, seize his stick, and set out in storm and
blackness. No, Potts, my man; for downright inflexibility of purpose,
for bold and resolute action, you need yield to none! It was, indeed, an
awful night; the thunder rolled and crashed with scarce an interval
of cessation; forked lightning tore across the sky in every direction;
while the wind swept through the deep glen, smashing branches and
uplifting large trees like mere shrubs. I was soon completely drenched,
and my soaked clothes hung around with the weight of lead; my spirits,
however, sustained me, and I toiled along, occasionally in a sort of
wild bravado, giving a cheer as the thunder rolled close above my head,
and trying to sing, as though my heart were as gay and my spirits as
light as in an hour of happiest abandonment.

Jean Paul has somewhere the theory that our Good Gen