"durance vile" used to be a euphemisms for jail.

"Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a
certain sumptuous way--an apologetic way, as if he constantly took
an admiring audience to witness that he really could not help being
more free with this old fellow than they might have expected, on
account of his simplicity and poverty--was mightily good to him.
Old Nandy had been several times to the Marshalsea College,
communicating with his son-in-law during his short durance there;
and had happily acquired to himself, and had by degrees and in
course of time much improved, the patronage of the Father of that
national institution."