My indignation, I may almost say, my despair, at this mischievous check to all further progress⁠—so base and trifling in itself, and yet so disheartening and so serious in its probable results⁠—quite unfitted me at first to reflect on the best means of extricating myself from the dilemma in which I now stood. I had the folly to call for writing materials, and to think of privately communicating my real position to the magistrate. The hopelessness and the imprudence of this proceeding failed to strike me before I had actually written the opening lines of the letter. It was not till I had pushed the paper away⁠—not till, I am ashamed to say, I had almost allowed the vexation of my helpless position to conquer me⁠—that a course of action suddenly occurred to my mind, which Sir Percival had probably not anticipated, and which might set me free again in a few hours. I determined to communicate the situation in which I was placed to Mr. Dawson, of Oak Lodge.