In an evil moment he "cabbaged" some cloth, was detected, tried, condemned, and sentenced to twenty months' imprisonment.

He had been in the army for over twenty years without a scratch of the pen against his name, and his officers had given him excellent characters; but the judge would hear of nothing in mitigation of sentence, although he knew it deprived the man of a pension of thirty-six pounds a year, which he had earned by long service in India, where the enemy's blades had drunk deeply of his blood.

His wife and children had gone to a work-house in Leicestershire, and as they had no money for travelling, he had never received a visit.

He pined away in his miserable cell until he became a pitiable spectacle which excited the compassion of the whole prison.

The doctor ordered him out of his cell, but the authorities would not allow it.