Having with some difficulty found shelter for the night, they proceeded on the following morning in a boat to Ramsay; but here it was found that, owing to some informality, the people who had possession of the house refused to give it up, and the wanderers were obliged to take refuge in an inn.  The next thing was to pursue, and recover the lost goods; but some weeks elapsed before an opportunity of doing so could be found; and at length, when John did reach Liverpool, the captain had left it, carrying away with him a considerable share of the property.  With the remainder, John, after many expenses and delays, returned to the island, and resumed his business.  But he soon discovered to his cost, that the calculations he had made were quite fallacious, owing to his having neglected to inquire whether the late prosperous season had been a normal or an exceptional one.  Unfortunately, it was the latter; and several very unfavourable ones that succeeded, reduced the family to great distress, and finally to utter ruin.

Relinquishing his shop and his goods to his creditors, John Glegg, heart-sick and weary, sought a refuge in London—­a proceeding to which he was urged by no prudential motives, but rather by the desire to fly as far as possible from the scenes of his vexations and disappointments, and because he had heard that the metropolis was a place in which a man might conceal his poverty, and suffer and starve at his ease, untroubled by impertinent curiosity or officious benevolence; and, above all, believing it to be the spot where he was least likely to fall in with any of his former acquaintance.

But here a new calamity awaited him, worse than all the rest.  A fever broke out in the closely-populated neighbourhood in which they had fixed their abode, and first two of his three children took it, and died; and then himself and his wife—­rendered meet subjects for infection by anxiety of mind and poor living—­were attacked with the disease.  He recovered; at least he survived, though with an enfeebled constitution, but he lost his wife, a wise and patient woman, who had been his comforter and sustainer through all his misfortunes—­misfortunes which, after vainly endeavouring to avert, she supported with heroic and uncomplaining fortitude; but dying, she left him a precious legacy in Mary, who, with a fine nature, and the benefit of her mother’s precept and example, had been to him ever since a treasure of filial duty and tenderness.

A faint light dawned through the dirty window on the morning succeeding the little event with which we opened our story, when Mary rose softly from her humble couch, and stepping lightly to where her father’s clothes lay on a chair, at the foot of his bed, she put her hand into his waistcoat-pocket, and, extracting therefrom the guinea which had been found in the gruel the preceding evening, she transferred it to her own.  She then dressed herself, and having ascertained that her father still slept, she quietly left the room.