Next me, at the long table where we were all thrown in together,—­all who could not pay for private meals, —­sat a poor fellow who had flung away a patrimony of three thousand a year.  Another had even mortgaged to a Jew his prospects on the death of his mother, and had been seized by the bailiffs outside of St. James’s palace, coming to Castle Yard direct from his Majesty’s levee.  Yet another, with such a look of dead hope in his eyes as haunts me yet, would talk to us by the hour of the Devonshire house where he was born, of the green valley and the peaceful stream, and of the old tower-room, caressed by trees, where Queen Bess had once lain under the carved oak rafters.  Here he had taken his young wife, and they used to sit together, so he said, in the sunny oriel over the water, and he had sworn to give up the cards.  That was but three years since, and then all had gone across the green cloth in one mad night in St. James’s Street.  Their friends had deserted them, and the poor little woman was lodged in Holborn near by, and came every morning with some little dainty to the bailiff’s, for her liege lord who had so used her.  He pressed me to share a fowl with him one day, but it would have choked me.  God knows where she got the money to buy it.  I saw her once hanging on his neck in the hall, he trying to shield her from the impudent gaze of his fellow-lodgers.

But some of them lived like lords in luxury, with never a seeming regret; and had apartments on the first floor, and had their tea and paper in bed, and lounged out the morning in a flowered nightgown, and the rest of the day in a laced coat.  These drank the bailiff’s best port and champagne, and had nothing better than a frown or haughty look for us, when we passed them at the landing.  Whence the piper was paid I knew not, and the bailiff cared not.  But the bulk of the poor gentlemen were a merry crew withal, and had their wit and their wine at table, and knew each other’s histories (and soon enough ours) by heart.  They betted away the week at billiards or whist or picquet or loo, and sometimes measured swords for diversion, tho’ this pastime the bailiff was greatly set against; as calculated to deprive him of a lodger.

Although we had no money for gaming, and little for wine or tobacco, the captain and I were received very heartily into the fraternity.  After one afternoon of despondency we both voted it the worst of bad policy to remain aloof and nurse our misfortune, and spent our first evening in making acquaintances over a deal of very thin “debtor’s claret.”  I tossed long that night on the hard cot, listening to the scurrying rats among the roof-timbers.  They ran like the thoughts in my brain.  And before I slept I prayed again and again that God would put it in my power to reward him whom charity for a friendless foundling had brought to a debtor’s prison.

Not so much as a single complaint or reproach had passed his lips!

CHAPTER XXV