CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
CONTAINING FURTHER ANECDOTES RELATING TO THE CHILDREN ON WRETCHEDNESS.
Dinner being cheerfully discussed, and our adventurer expressing an eager desire to know the history of the male and female who had acted as squires or seconds to the champions of the King's Bench, Felton gratified his curiosity to this effect: "All that I know of Captain Clewline, previous to his commitment, is, that he was a commander of a sloop of war, and bore the reputation of a gallant officer; that he married the daughter of a rich merchant in the city of London, against the inclination and without the knowledge of her father, who renounced her for this act of disobedience; that the captain consoled himself for the rigour of the parent, with the possession of the lady, who was not only remarkably beautiful in person, but highly accomplished in her mind, and amiable in her disposition.

Such, a few months ago, were those two persons whom you saw acting in such a vulgar capacity.

When they first entered the prison, they were undoubtedly the handsomest couple mine eyes ever beheld, and their appearance won universal respect even from the most brutal inhabitants of the jail.
"The captain, having unwarily involved himself as a security for a man to whom he had lain under obligations, became liable for a considerable sum, and his own father-in-law being the sole creditor of the bankrupt, took this opportunity of wreaking vengeance upon him for having espoused his daughter.

He watched an opportunity until the captain had actually stepped into the post-chaise with his lady for Portsmouth, where his ship lay, and caused him to be arrested in the most public and shameful manner.

Mrs.Clewline had like to have sunk under the first transports of her grief and mortification; but these subsiding, she had recourse to personal solicitation.