This was a state of mind that could not long endure without leading to a fatal result. I began to regard suicide as the only remedy for my misery; and even to look upon it as a crime of no very deep atrocity. Yet there was a feeling within me that made death as a remedy horrible. At length, by an effort that cost me more to accomplish than anything I had ever done before or since, I shook off this, the darkest moral incubus of the darkest period of my life, and, after an absence of ten days, waited upon Captain H---- to bid him farewell, as I was resolved to leave London, and enter on board the first vessel wherever bound for, and in any capacity I could obtain a berth. When I reached the house, I found it shut up, and could obtain no information whither he had gone. All I learned was, that they had left the house three days before, it was believed for the country. I felt indignant and hurt, although I had no reason, at this sudden departure. I had no claim upon him. I had ever been overpaid for any service I had rendered. Still, this was not my feeling at the time; and I bent my steps towards my lodgings in no enviable mood, either with myself or the world. A numbing sensation was upon me. I felt once more alone in the world; and passed through the busy crowds that thronged the streets, almost unconscious of the presence of a human being, until I had reached Tower Hill, when my attention was roused by a crowd of men and boys, who were hooting and jostling an old man of rather respectable appearance, whose impatient anger caused them only to increase their shouts and annoyance. They were calling to him, "Rebel Scot," and "Scottish traitor;" and crying, "Roll him in the kennel," "Duck him in the river." I was in a humour to quarrel with any one, or even dare a host. My blood was on fire in a moment, for the old man upbraided them in Scotch, although tinctured by a foreign accent. He was tall, and had once been a very powerful man. His hat had been knocked off, and his grey hairs were in disorder, save what were retained by a neat cue that bobbed from side to side, as he was pushed, or turned to aim a blow at his cowardly assailants, many of whom, I blush to say, had reached man's estate. In an instant I was by his side, and shouted, to overtop the noise-- "For shame, to use an old man and a stranger so! Is that like Englishmen?" For a moment there was a pause; it was but for a moment. My Scottish accent turned them as much against me as him whom I wished to befriend.