To a
youthful imagination, the idea of such a punishment as mutilation
seems more ghastly than death itself; and every word which he
overheard among the groups which he met, mingled with, or overtook and
passed, announced this as the penalty of his offence. He dreaded to
increase his pace for fear of attracting suspicion, and more than once
saw the ranger's officers so near him, that his wrist tingled as if
already under the blade of the dismembering knife. At length he got
out of the Park, and had a little more leisure to consider what he was
next to do.
Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name
of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the
privilege of a sanctuary, unless against the writ of the Lord Chief
Justice, or of the Lords of the Privy-Council. Indeed, as the place
abounded with desperadoes of every description,--bankrupt citizens,
ruined gamesters, irreclaimable prodigals, desperate duellists,
bravoes, homicides, and debauched profligates of every description,
all leagued together to maintain the immunities of their asylum,--it
was both difficult and unsafe for the officers of the law to execute
warrants emanating even from the highest authority, amongst men whose
safety was inconsistent with warrants or authority of any kind. This
Lord Glenvarloch well knew; and odious as the place of refuge was, it
seemed the only one where, for a space at least, he might be concealed
and secure from the immediate grasp of the law, until he should have
leisure to provide better for his safety, or to get this unpleasant
matter in some shape accommodated.
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