under the pretext of the provocation they had received, measures to which
some sense of decency, if not of conscience, might otherwise have
deterred them from resorting.

Owen had a small share, as I believe is usual, in the house to which he
acted as head-clerk, and was therefore personally liable for all its
obligations. This was known to Messrs. MacVittie and MacFin; and, with a
view of making him feel their power, or rather in order to force him, at
this emergency, into those measures in their favour, to which he had
expressed himself so repugnant, they had recourse to a summary process of
arrest and imprisonment,--which it seems the law of Scotland (therein
surely liable to much abuse) allows to a creditor, who finds his
conscience at liberty to make oath that the debtor meditates departing
from the realm. Under such a warrant had poor Owen been confined to
durance on the day preceding that when I was so strangely guided to his
prison-house.

Thus possessed of the alarming outline of facts, the question remained,
what was to be done and it was not of easy determination. I plainly
perceived the perils with which we were surrounded, but it was more
difficult to suggest any remedy. The warning which I had already received
seemed to intimate, that my own personal liberty might be endangered by
an open appearance in Owen's behalf. Owen entertained the same
apprehension, and, in the exaggeration of his terror, assured me that a
Scotchman, rather than run the risk of losing a farthing by an
Englishman, would find law for arresting his wife, children, man-servant,
maidservant, and stranger within his household. The laws concerning debt,
in most countries, are so unmercifully severe, that I could not
altogether disbelieve his statement; and my arrest, in the present
circumstances, would have been a _coup-de-grace_ to my father's affairs.