THE RESCUE

Perchance, my dears, if John Paul and I had not been cast by accident in a debtor’s prison, this great man might never have bestowed upon our country those glorious services which contributed so largely to its liberty.  And I might never have comprehended that the American Revolution was brought on and fought by a headstrong king, backed by unscrupulous followers who held wealth above patriotism.  It is often difficult to lay finger upon the causes which change the drift of a man’s opinions, and so I never wholly knew why John Paul abandoned his deep-rooted purpose to obtain advancement in London by grace of the accomplishments he had laboured so hard to attain.  But I believe the beginning was at the meeting at Windsor with the slim and cynical gentleman who had treated him to something between patronage and contempt.  Then my experience with Mr. Manners had so embedded itself in his mind that he could never speak of it but with impatience and disgust.  And, lastly, the bailiff’s hotel contained many born gentlemen who had been left here to rot out the rest of their dreary lives by friends who were still in power and opulence.  More than once when I climbed to our garret I found the captain seated on the three-legged chair, with his head between his hands, sunk in reflection.

“You were right, Richard,” said he; “your great world is a hard world for those in the shadow of it.  I see now that it must not be entered from below, but from the cabin window.  A man may climb around it, lad, and when he is above may scourge it.”

“And you will scourge it, captain!” I had no doubt of his ability one day to do it.

“Ay, and snap my fingers at it.  ’Tis a pretty organization, this society, which kicks the man who falls to the dogs.  None of your fine gentlemen for me!”

And he would descend to talk politics with our fellow-guests.  We should have been unhappy indeed had it not been for this pastime.  It seems to me strange that these debtors took such a keen interest in outside affairs, even tho’ it was a time of great agitation.  We read with eagerness the cast-off newspapers of the first-floor gentlemen.  One poor devil who had waddled (failed) in Change Alley had collected under his mattress the letters of Junius, then selling the Public Advertiser as few publications had ever sold before.  John Paul devoured these attacks upon his Majesty and his ministry in a single afternoon, and ere long he had on the tip of his tongue the name and value of every man in Parliament and out of it.  He learned, almost by heart, the history of the astonishing fight made by Mr. Wilkes for the liberties of England, and speedily was as good a Whig and a better than the member from Middlesex himself.