I don't wish to dwell on the suffering and despair of the next few days. The mere physical distress was bad enough, but looking back I hardly seem to remember the daily flogging, nor the cold and damp of the bare brick cell, nor my stiffness of body when I awoke in the dark not knowing whether it were morning yet or still night-time, nor the hunger gnawing within me, half famished as I was on the starvation diet. These things have only left a blurred impression on my memory, though the anguish at the time was cruel enough. But what I do remember vividly, as though the agony of it were still with me, is the crying pain at my heart, knowing my father wanted me, had sent for me, and like a fool I wasn't ready for him, had indeed by my imbecile conduct failed him at his need. This was the thought that stung me more than the birch and the shivering cold and the biting hunger: my father needed me, and I had failed him. How long I was kept in captivity I didn't reckon up. It seemed endless, and with no hope of freedom beyond. When Staggers brought me my first meal I did indeed ask him how many days there were to May-day, but he merely snarled at me, and kicked me where I lay with the chains about my wrists. For by now I was considered dangerous. Some while since I had been deprived of my knife, and of course when I was stripped for flogging my pistol was found on me. One who could run away from school and hide a week or more in the neighbourhood without discovery, and who, moreover, was found at last with a loaded pistol beneath his cloak, wasn't to be treated as an ordinary mischief-maker. Though locked and bolted into my cell it was deemed necessary to chain me up also. Repeatedly I was bidden to declare where I had been hiding, but my courage was firm enough to prevent me from betraying the Captain. It seemed a mystery to my captors where I could have obtained food and shelter all this while. Eventually it was assumed that I had robbed at the pistol mouth; and had there been any robberies during my absence doubtless I should have been held responsible for them. However, though no robberies could be discovered, I was well flogged on the understanding that they had nevertheless been committed. For otherwise how had I supported myself? But all this I wish to pass over. It was miserable while it lasted, and it helped to harden something within me which was gradually taking stock of the ways of the world, appraising them or condemning them according to my own sense of the just and the fitting without reference to the standards I found set up about me.