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Pity the unhappy, said a devout, venerable, hoary-headed man, meekly holding up a box, begirt with iron, in his withered hands——I beg for the unfortunate—good my Lady, ’tis for a prison—for an hospital—’tis for an old man—a poor man undone by shipwreck, by suretyship, by fire——I call God and all his angels to witness——’tis to clothe the naked——to feed the hungry——’tis to comfort the sick and the broken-hearted.

Frank′ness; Frank′-pledge, a system of mutual suretyship by which the members of a tithing were made responsible for one another; Frank′-ten′ement, freehold.

A revocation of the contract of suretyship by act of the parties, or in certain cases by the death of the surety, may also operate to discharge the surety.

The most prolific ground of discharge, however, is usually traceable to causes originating in the creditor’s laches or conduct, the governing principle being that if the creditor violates any rights which the surety possessed when he entered into the suretyship, even though the damage be nominal only, the guarantee cannot be enforced.

But when Dan reached his new home Ewan was away—a poor old Quaker named Christian, who had brought himself to beggary by neglecting Solomon's injunction against suretyship, was dying, and had sent for the parson.