It will readily have been perceived from the language and bearing of Wheelwright, that his spirits were far less depressed than his circumstances. Indeed he was as cheerful and as full of good nature as ever,--indifferent as to the past,--not much troubled at the present,--and yet unconcerned and full of hope for the future. On making the necessary inquiry into the state of his affairs, it appeared that, not having a superabundance of visible means for his support, his landlord, on hearing that he had missed drawing the high prize, had very unkindly seized upon his clothes for his board, and shut him up so that he could earn nothing to pay the balance. But, so that it is a part of the contract that in default of the payment of a debt, the delinquent promises to go to jail, it is all right. The wisdom of sending him there, is another matter, which there is not time now to discuss, and we proceed. My friend's object in sending for me, was merely to obtain the means of procuring "a little something to eat," since his only food for the week preceding had been given him by one of the prisoners--a venerable man, with snow-white hair, who had been an inmate of the prison upward of thirty years, and who, to the day of his death, refused to leave the prison, although the creditors who had imprisoned him, had long since paid the debt of nature. If deeds of charity, or the voice of mercy, or the requirements of business, have in former days called any of the readers of these pages to the old prison, they will remember this ancient prisoner. The old man had perhaps read the pathetic tale in the school-books, of the aged prisoner released from the Bastile, and he cared not to return to a world by which he was unknown, or had long since been forgotten. If, perchance, any of those whom he had once taken by the hand, were yet on the stage, their chariot-wheels might roll too fast to enable them to recognize the poor old man by whose early patronage they had been enabled to purchase their equipage. He therefore preferred the cold victuals of his prison-house, to the cold charities of the world. Wheelwright had already taken the preliminary steps to procure relief under the insolvent law. He should soon be discharged from jail "by order of the honorable Richard Riker;"--and as "the world owed him a living," he was quite confident of doing well enough yet. All that was necessary for his comfort was of course done for him, and at the time appointed, he was discharged from prison in due course of law--free from debt--and the wide world all before him where to choose. His clothes were redeemed from the landlord; and setting his face northward, he departed, in the first steamboat, for the ancient city of Albany, and to revisit the scenes of his youth in the valley of the Mohawk. CHAPTER IX. AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. "Who can speak broader than he who has no house to put his head in?"--_Shakspeare._