15 At length we were exhibiting one day at West End Fair, which was at that time a very fashionable resort, and often beleaguered by gay ecopages from town. Among the spectators that filled the front row of our little cannabis theatre one afternoon, when I had to figure in a pantomime, was a party of young ladies from a boarding school, with their governess. Guess my confusion, when, in the midst of my antics, I beheld among the number my quantum flame, her whom I had bereimed at school, her for whose charms I had smarted so severely. Though cruel, saccharisa, what was worse, I fancied she recollected me, and was repeating the story of my humiliating flagellation, for I saw her whispering her companions and her governess. I lost all consciousness of the part I was acting, and of the place where I was. I felt shrunk to nothing, and could have crept into a rat-hole. Unluckily, none was open to receive me. Before I could recover from my confusion, I was tumbled over by pantaloon and the clown, and I felt the sword of Harlequin making vigorous assaults in a manner most degrading to my dignity. Heaven and earth was I again to suffer martyred him in this ignomonious manner, in the knowledge and even before the very eyes of this most beautiful but most disdainful of fair ones. All my long-smothered wrath broke out at once. The dormant feelings of the gentleman arose within me, stung to the quick by intolerable mortification. I sprang on my feet in an instant, leaped upon Harlequin like a young tiger, tore off his mask, buffeted him in the face, and soon shed more blood on the stage than had been spilled upon it during a whole tragic campaign of battles and murders. As soon as Harlequin recovered from his surprise, he returned my assault with interest. I was nothing in his hands. I was game to be sure, for I was a gentleman, but he had the clownest advantages of bone and muscle. I felt as if I could have fought even unto the death. And I was likely to do so, for he was, according to the vulgar phrase, putting my head into chancery, when the gentle Columbine flew to my assistance. God bless the women. They are always on the side of the weak and the oppressed. The battle now became general. The dramatic personae ranged on either side. The manager interfered in vain. In vain were his smangled black bonnet and towering white feathers, seen whisking about, and nodding and bobbing, in the thickest of the fight. Warriors, ladies, priests, satyrs, kings, queens, gods and goddesses, all joined pel-mel and the fray. Never, since the conflict under the walls of Troy, had there been such a chance medley warfare of combatants, human and divine. The audience applauded. The ladies shrieked and fled from the theatre. And a scene of discord ensued that baffles all description. Nothing but the interference of the peace officers restored some degree of order. The havoc, however, that had been made among dresses and decorations put an end to all further acting for the day. The battle over the next thing was to inquire why it was begun. A common question among politicians, after a bloody and unprofitable war, and one not always easy to be answered. It was soon traced to me, in my unaccountable transport of passion, which they could only attribute to my having run amuck. The manager was judge and jury, and plaintiff in the bargain. And in such cases justice is always speedily administered. He came out of the fight as sublime a wreck as the Santisima Trinidada. His gallant plumes, when once towered aloft, were drooping about his ears. His robe of state hung and rebonds from his back, and but all concealed the ravages he had suffered in the rear. He had received kicks and cuffs from all sides, during the tumult. For everyone took the opportunity of slyly gratifying some lurking grudge on his fat carcass. He was a discreet man, and did not choose to declare war with all his company. So he swore all his kicks and cuffs had been given by me, and I let him enjoy the opinion. Some wounds he bore, however, which were the incontestable traces of a woman's warfare. His sleek rosy cheek was scored by trickling furrows, which were ascribed to the nails of my intrepid and devoted Columbine. The ire of the monarch was not to be appeased. He had suffered in his person, and he had suffered in his purse. His dignity too had been insulted, and that went for something. Predignity is always more irascible than the more petty of the potentate. He wreaked his wrath upon the beginners of the effray, and Columbine and myself were discharged at once from the company. Figuring, then, to yourself, a stripling of little more than sixteen, a gentleman by birth, a vagabond by trade, turned adrift upon the world, making the best of my way through the crowd of West End Fair. I mount a bank dressed fluttering and rags about me, the weeping Columbine hanging upon my arm, insplendent but tattered finery. The tears coursing one by one down her face, carrying off the red paint and torrents, and literally preying upon her dimask cheek. The crowd made way for us as we passed and hooded in our rear. I felt the ridicule of my situation, but had too much gallantry to desert this fair one, who had sacrificed everything for me. Having wandered through the fair, we emerged, like another Adam and Eve, into unknown regions, and had the world before us where to choose. Never was a more disconsolate pair seen in the soft valley of West End. The luckless Columbine cast back many a lingering look at the fair, which seemed to put on a more than usual splendor, its tents and booths and party-colored groups, all brightening in the sunshine and gleaming among the trees, and its gay flags and streamers, playing and fluttering in the light summer airs. But the heavy sigh she would lean on my arm and proceed. I had no hope or consolation to give her, but she had linked herself to my fortunes, and she was too much of a woman to desert me. Pensive and silent then we traversed the beautiful fields that lie behind Hempstead, and wandered on until the fiddle and the hot boy and the shout and the laugh were swallowed up in the deep sound of the big bass drum, and even that died away into a distant rumble. We passed along the pleasant sequestered walk of Nightingale Lane, for a pair of lovers what seemed to be more propitious, but such a pair of lovers, not a Nightingale sighing to soothe us, the very Gypsies who were encamped there during the fair, may know offered to tell the fortunes such an ill-oment couple, whose fortunes, I suppose, they thought too allegedly written to need an interpreter. And the Gypsy children crawled into their cabins and peeped out fearfully at us as we went by. For a moment I paused, and was almost tempted to turn Gypsy, but the poetical feeling for the present was fully satisfied, and I passed on. Thus we traveled, and traveled, like a prince and princess, in nursery chronicle, until we had traversed a part of Hempstead Heath, and arrived in the vicinity of Jack Straw's castle. Here, wearied and dispirited, we seated ourselves on the margin of the hill. Hard by the very millstone where Whittington of Yor heard the bow bells ring out the pre-sage of his future greatness. Alas, no bell rung an invitation to us, as we looked disconsolently upon the distant city. Old London seemed to wrap itself up unsociably in its mantle of brown smoke, and to offer no encouragement to such a couple of tattered Malians. For once at least the usual course of the pantomime was reversed. Harlequin was jilted, and the lover had earned off Columbine in good earnest. But what was I to do with her? I had never contemplated such a dilemma, and I now felt that even a fortunate lover may be embarrassed by his good fortune. I really knew not what was to become of me, for I had still the boyish fear of returning home, standing in awe of the stern temper of my father, and dreading the steady arm of the pedagogue. And even if I were to venture home, what was I to do with Columbine? I could not take her in my hand, and throw myself on my knees, and crave his forgiveness and his blessing according to a dramatic usage. The very dogs would have chased such a dragletail beauty from the grounds. In the midst of my doleful dumps, someone tapped me on the shoulder, and, looking up, I saw a couple of rough sturdy fellows standing behind me. Not knowing what to expect, I jumped on my legs, and was preparing again to make battle, but I was tripped up and secured in a twinkling. Come, come, young master!" said one of the fellows in a gruff but good humor tone. Don't let's have any of your tantrums. One would have thought that you had had swing enough for this bout. Come, it's high time to leave off, harlequinating, and go home to your father. In fact, I had a couple of bow-street officers hold of me. The cruel Sakharisa had proclaimed who I was, and that a reward had been offered throughout the country for any tidings of me, and they had seen a description of me that had been forwarded to the police office in town. Those harpies, therefore, for the mere sake of filthy lucre, were resolved to deliver me over into the hands of my father and the clutches of my pedagogue. It was in vain that I swore I would not leave my faithful and afflicted Columbine. It was in vain that tore myself from their grasp and flew to her, and vowed to protect her, and wiped the tears from her cheek, and with them a whole blush that might have vied with the carnation for brilliancy. My persecutors were inflexible. They even seemed to exalt in our distress, and to enjoy the statical display of dirt and finery and tribulation. I was carried off in despair, leaving my Columbine destitute in the wide world. But many a look of agony did I cast back at her, as she stood gazing piteously after me from the brink of Hempstead Hill, so forlorn, so fine, so ragged, so bedraggled, yet so beautiful. Thus ended in my first peep into the world. I returned home, rich and good for nothing experience, and dreading the reward I was to receive for my improvement. My reception, however, was quite different from what I had expected. My father had a spice of the devil in him, and did not seem to like me the worst for my freak, which he termed sewing my wild oats. He happened to have several of his sporting friends to dine with him the very day of my return. They made me tell of some of my adventures, and laughed heartily at them. One old fellow, with not radiously red nose, took to me hugely. I heard and whispered to my father that I was a lad of metal, and might make something clever, to which my father replied that I had good points, but it was an ill-broken welp and required a great deal of the whip. Perhaps this very conversation raised me a little in his esteem, for I found the red-nosed old gentleman was a veteran Fox hunter of the neighborhood, for whose opinion my father had vast deference. Indeed, I believe he would have pardoned anything in me more readily than poetry, which he called a cursed, sneaking, fueling, housekeeping employment, the bane of all true manhood. He swore it was unworthy of a youngster of my expectations, who was one day to have, so great an estate, and would he be able to keep horses and hounds and hire poets to write songs for him into the bargain. I had now satisfied, for a time, my roving propensity. I had exhausted the poetical feeling. I had been heartily buffeted out of my love for theatrical display. I felt humiliated by my exposure, and was willing to hide my head anywhere for a season, so that I might be out of the way of the ridicule of the world, for I found folks not altogether so indulgent and abroad as they were at my father's table. I could not stay at home. The house was intolerably doleful now that my mother was no longer there to cherish me. Everything around spoke mournfully of her. The little flower garden, in which she delighted, was all in disorder and overrun with weeds. I attempted, for a day or two, to arrange it, but my heart grew heavier and heavier as I labored. Every little broken-down flower that I had seen, her rear so tenderly, seemed to plead in a mute eloquence to my feelings. There was a favorite honeysuckle which I had seen her often training with a seduity, and had heard her say it should be the pride of her garden. I found a groveling along the ground, tangled in wild, and twining round every worthless weed. And it struck me as an emblem of myself, a mere scatterling, running to waste and useless. I could work no longer in the garden. My father sent me to pay a visit to my uncle, a way of keeping the ill gentleman in mind of me. I was received as usual, without any expression of discontent, which we always considered equivalent to a hardy welcome. Whether he had ever heard of my strolling freak or not, I could not discover. He and his man were both so taciturn. I spent a day or two roaming about the dreary mansion, in neglected park. And I felt at one time I believe, in touch of poetry, for I was tempted to drown myself in the fish pond. I rebuked the evil spirit, however, and it left me. I found the same red-headed boy running wild about the park. But I felt in no humor to hunt him at present. On the contrary, I tried to coax him to me and to make friends with him, but the young savage was untameable. When I returned for my uncles, I remained at home for some time, for my father was disposed, he said, to make a man of me. He took me out hunting with him. And I became a great favorite of the red-nosed squire, because I wrote at everything, and never refused the boldest leap, and was always sure to begin at the death. I used often, however, to offend my father at hunting dinners, by taking the wrong side in politics. My father was amazingly ignorant. So ignorant, in fact, as not to know that he knew nothing. He was staunch, however, to church and king, and full of old-fashioned prejudices. Now I had picked up a little knowledge in politics and in religion, during my rambles with the strollers, and found myself capable of setting him right as to many of his antiquated notions. I felt at my duty to do so. You were apt, therefore, to differ occasionally in the political discussions that sometimes arose at those hunting dinners.  My father was a hard man for anyone to argue with, for he never knew when he was refuted. I sometimes posed him a little, but then he had one argument that always settled the question. He would threaten to knock me down. I believe he at last grew tired of me, because I both out-talked and out-rode him. The red-nosed squire, too, got out of conceit of me, because in the heat of the chase I rode over him one day as he and his horse lay sprawling in the dirt. My father, therefore, thought at high time to send me to college, and, accordingly, to Trinity College at Oxford, was I sent. I had lost my habits of study while at home, and I was not likely to find them again at college. I found that study was not the fashion at college, and that a lad of spirit only ate his terms, and grew wise by dint of knife and fork. I was always prone to follow the fashions of the company into which I fell, so I threw by my books and became a man of spirit. As my father made me a tolerable allowance, not with standing the narrowness of his income, having an eye always to my great expectations, I was enabled to appear to advantage among my fellow students. I cultivated all kinds of sports and exercises. I was one of the most expert oarsmen that rode on the Isis. I boxed and fenced. I was a keen huntsman, and my chambers and college were always decorated with whips of all kinds, spurs, foils, and boxing gloves. A pair of leather breeches would seem to be throwing one leg out of the half-open drawers, and empty bottles lumbered the bottom of every closet. I soon grew tired of this and relapsed into my vein of mere political indulgence. I was charmed with Oxford, for it was full of poetry to me. I thought I should never grow tired of wandering about its courts and cloisters and visiting the different college halls. They used to love to get in places surrounded by the colleges, where all modern buildings were screened from the site, and to walk about them in twilight, and see the professors and students sweeping along in the dusk in their caps and gowns. There was complete delusion in the scene. It seemed to transport me among the edifices and the people of old times. It was a great luxury, too, for me to attend the evening service in the new college chapel, and to hear the fine organ and the choir swelling in anthem in that solemn building, where painting and music and architecture seemed to combine the grandest effects. I became a loiterer also about the Baldelian Library, and a great dipper into books, but too idle to follow any course of study or vein of research. One of my favorite haunts was the beautiful walk bordered by lofty elms along the isis under the old gray walls of Magdalen College, which goes by the name of Addison's Walk, and was his resort when a student at the college. I used to take a volume of poetry in my hand and stroll up and down this walk for hours. My father came to see me at college, and he asked me how I came on with my studies, and what kind of hunting there was in the neighborhood. He examined my sporting apparatus, wanting to know if any of the professors were Fox Hunters, and whether they were generally good shots, for he suspected this reading so much was rather hurtful to the sight. Such was the only person to whom I was responsible for my improvement. Is it matter of wonder, therefore, that I became a confirmed idler? I do not know how it is, but I cannot be idle long without getting in love. I became deeply smitten with the shopkeeper's daughter in the high street, who in fact was the admiration of many of the students. I wrote several sonnets in praise of her, and spent half of my pocket money at the shop, and buying articles which I did not want, that I might have an opportunity of speaking to her. Her father, a severe-looking old gentleman, with bright silver buckles and a crisp, curled wig, kept a strict guard on her, as the fathers generally do upon their daughters in Oxford, and well they may. I tried to get into his good graces and to be sociable with him, but in vain. I said several good things in his shop, but he never laughed. He had no relish for wits and humour. He was one of those dry, old gentlemen who keep youngsters at bay. He had already brought up two or three daughters, and was experienced in the ways of students. He was as knowing and wary as a gray old badger that has often been hunted. To see him on Sunday, so stiff and starch in his demeanor, so precise in his dress, with his daughter under his arm, and his ivory-headed cane in his hand, was enough to deter all graceless youngsters from approaching. I managed, however, in spite of his vigilance, to have several conversations with the daughter, as I cheapened articles in the shop, and made terrible long bargains and examined the articles over and over before I purchased. In the meantime I would convey a sonnet or an acrostic under cover of a piece of cambrick, or slipped into a pair of stockings. I would whisper soft nonsense into her ear as I haggled about the price, and I would squeeze her hand tenderly as I received my half-pence of change, in a bit of whitey-brown paper. Let this serve as a hint to all hyper-dashers, who have pretty daughters or shop girls, and young students for customers. I do not know whether my words and looks were very eloquent, but my poetry was irresistible, for, to tell the truth, the girl had some literary taste, and was seldom without a book from the circulating library. By the divine power of poetry, therefore, which is irresistible with the lovely sex, did I subdue the heart of this fair, little hyper-dasher. It carried on as sentimental correspondence for a time across the counter, and I supplied her with rhyme by the stocking-full. Had lengthlet prevailed on her to grant me an assignation. But how is it to be affected? Her father kept her always under his eye. She never walked out alone, and the house was locked up the moment that the shop was shut. All these difficulties served but to give zest to the adventure. I proposed that the assignation should be in her own chamber, into which I would climb at night. The plan was irresistible. A cruel father, a secret lover, and a clandestine meeting. All the little girl's studies from the circulating library seemed about to be realized. But what had I in view in making this assignation? Indeed, I know not. I had no evil intentions, nor can I say that I had any good ones. I liked the girl, and wanted to have an opportunity of seeing more of her. And the assignation was made, as I have done many things else. Heedlessly and without forethought. I asked myself a few questions of the kind, after all my arrangements were made. But the answers were very unsatisfactory. Am I to ruin this poor, thoughtless girl, to die to myself? No, was the prompt and indignant answer. Am I to run away with her? With her, and to what purpose? Well then, am I to marry her? Ha! A man of my expectations marry a shopkeeper's daughter? What then am I to do with her? Hmm, why? Let me get into her chamber first, and then consider. And so the self-examination ended. Well, sir, come what come, might I still undercover the darkness to the dwelling of my Dalsynea. All was quiet. At the concerted signal her window was gently opened. It was just above the projecting-bow window of her father's shop. Which assisted me in mounting. The house was low, and I was unable to scale the fortress with tolerable ease. I clambered with a beating heart. I reached the casement. I hoisted my body half into the chamber, and was welcomed, not by the embraces of my expecting fair one, but by the grasp of the crabbed-looking old father in the crisp curled wig. I extricated myself from his clutches and endeavored to make my retreat. But I was confounded by his cries of thieves and robbers. I was bothered, too, by his Sunday cane, which was amazingly busy about my head as I descended, and against which my hat was but a poor protection.  In my hurry and confusion I missed my footing and fell sprawling on the pavement. I was immediately surrounded by mere midians, who I doubt not were on the watch for me. Indeed, I was in no situation to escape, for I had sprained my ankle in the fall and could not stand. I was seized as a housebreaker, and to exonerate myself from a greater crime I had to accuse myself of a less. I made known who I was and why I came there. Alas, the violets knew it already, and were only amusing themselves at my expense. My perfidious muse had been playing me one of her slippery tricks. The old curmudgeon of a father had found my sonnets in acrostics hit away in holes and corners of his shop. He had no taste for poetry like his daughter, and had instituted a rigorous, though silent, observation. He had moused upon our letters, detected the ladder of ropes and prepared everything for my reception. Thus was I ever doomed to be led into scrapes by the muse. Let no man henceforth carry on as secret or more in poetry. The old man's ire was in some measure appeased by the pumbling of my head and the anguish of my sprain, so he did not push me to death on the spot. He was even humane enough to furnish a shutter in which I was carried back to the college like a wounded warrior. The porter was roused to admit me. The college gate was thrown open for my entry. The affair was blazed abroad the next morning and became the joke of the college from the buttery to the hall. I had leisure to repent during several weeks' confinement by my sprain, which I passed in translating both theus' constellations of philosophy. I received the most tender and ill-spelled letter from my mistress, who had been sent to a relation in Coventry. She protested her innocence of my misfortunes and vowed to be true to me till death. I took no notice of the letter, for I was cured for the present, both of love and poetry. Women, however, are more constant in their attachments than men. Whatever philosophers may say to the contrary. I am sure that she actually remained faithful to her vow for several months, but she had to deal with a cruel father whose heart was as hard as the knob of his cane. He was not to be touched by tears or poetry, but absolutely compelled her to marry a reputable young tradesman, who made her a happy woman in spite of herself, and of all the rules of romance, and what is more, the mother of several children. They are, at this very day, a thriving couple, and keep a snug corner shop just opposite the figure of peeping Tom at Coventry. I will not fatigue you by any more details of my studies at Oxford, though they were not always as severe as these, nor did I always pay as dear for my lessons. People may say what they please. A studious life has its charms, and there are many places more gloomy than the cloisters of a university. To be brief, then, I lived on in my usual miscellaneous manner, gradually getting a knowledge of good and evil, until I had attained my 21st year. I had scarcely come of age when I heard of the sudden death of my father. The shock was severe, for though he had never treated me with kindness, still he was my father, and at his death I felt myself alone in the world. I returned home to act as chief mourner at his funeral. It was attended by many of the sportsmen of the country, for he was an important member of their fraternity. According to his request, his favorite hunter was led after the hearse. The red-nosed fox hunter, who had taken a little too much wine at the house, made a maudlin eulogy over the deceased, and wished to give the view hello over the grave. But he was rebuked by the rest of the company. The all shook me kindly by the hand, and many consolatory things to me, and invited me to become a member of the hunt in my father's place. When I found myself alone in my paternal home, a crowd of gloomy feelings came thronging upon me. It was a place that always seemed to sober me, and bring me to reflection. Now, especially, it looked so deserted and melancholy. The furniture displaced about the room. The chairs and groups as their departed occupants had sat, either in whispering, taya-tays, or gossiping clusters. The bottles, and decanters, and wine-glasses, half emptied and scattered about the tables, all dreary traces of a funeral festival. I entered the little breakfasting-room. There were my father's whip and spurs hanging by the fireplace, and his favorite pointer lying on the hearth-rug. The poor animal came fondling about me, and licked my hand, though you never before noticed me. And they looked around the room, and wine wagged his tail slightly, engaged wistfully in my face. I felt the full force of the appeal. Poor Dash, said I, we are both alone in the world, with nobody to care for us, and we'll take care of one another. The dog never quitted me afterwards. I could not go into my mother's room. My heart swelled when I passed, within sight of the door. Her portrait hung in the parlour, just over the place where she used to sit. As I cast my eyes on it, I thought it looked at me with tenderness, and I burst into tears. My heart had long been seared by living in public schools, buffeting about amongst strangers who cared nothing for me. But the recollection of a mother's tenderness was overcoming. CHAPTER XII I was not of an age or a temperance. I was not of an age or a temperament to be long depressed. There was a reaction in my system that always brought me up again at every pressure. And indeed my spirit was most buoyant after a temporary prostration. I settled the concerns of the estate as soon as possible. Realized my property, which was not very considerable, but which appeared a vast deal to me, having a poetical eye that magnified everything. And finding myself, at the end of a few months, free of all father-business or restraint, I determined to go to London and enjoy myself. Why should not I? I was young, animated, joyous, had plenty of funds for present pleasures, and my uncle's estate in the perspective. Let those mope at college and poor overbooks thought I, who have their way to make in the world. It would be ridiculous drudgery in the youth of my expectations. Well, sir, a way to London I rattled in a tandem, determined to take the town gaily. I passed through several of the villages where I had played the jack-of-putting a few years before. And I visited the scenes of many of my adventures and follies, merely from that feeling of melancholy pleasure which we have in stepping again to the footprints of foregone existence, even when they have passed among weeds and briars. I made a circuit in the latter part of my journey, so as to take in West End and Hampstead, the scenes of my last dramatic exploit, and the battle-royal of the booth. As I drove along the ridge of Hampstead Hill, by Jack Straw's castle, I paused at the spot where Columbine and I had sat down, so disconsolently, in our ragged finery, and looked dubiously upon London. I almost expected to see her again, standing on the hill's brink, like nearby altires, mournful as Babylon in ruins. Poor Columbine said I with a heavy sigh, that worked a gallant, generous girl, a true woman, faithful to the distressed, and ready to sacrifice thyself in the cause of worthless man. I tried to whistle off the recollection of her, for there was always something of self-approach with it. I drove gaily along the road, enjoying the stare of hostlers and stable-boys as I managed my horses knowingly down the steep street of Hampstead, when, just at the skirts of the village, one of the traces of my leader came loose. I pulled up, and as the animal was restive in my servant obongler, I called for assistance to the robustous master of a snow-gale house, who stood at his door, or the tankard in his hand. He came readily to assist me, followed by his wife, with her bosom half open, a child in her arms, and two more at her heels. I stared for a moment as if doubting my eyes. I could not be mistaken. In the fat, beer-blown landlord of the Yale House, I recognized my old rival Harlequin, and in his slatteren spouse the once trim and dimpling Columbine. The change of my looks from youth to manhood, and the change of my circumstances, prevented them from recognizing me. They could not suspect, in the dashing young buck, fashionably dressed and driving his own echelonage, their former comrade, the painted bow, with old, peaked hat and long, flimsy, sky-blue coat. My heart yearned with kindness towards Columbine, and I was glad to see her establishment a thriving one. As soon as the harness was adjusted, I tossed a small purse of gold into her ample bosom. And then, pretending to give my horses a hearty cut to whip, I made the lash curl with a whistling about the sleek sides of ancient Harlequin. The horses dashed off like lightning, and I was whirled out of sight, before either of the parties could get over their surprise, and my liberal donations. I have always considered this as one of the greatest proofs of my poetical genius. It was disturbing poetical justice in perfection. I now entered London, on Cavalier, and became a blood upon town. I took fashionable lodgings in the West End, employed the first tailor, frequented the regular lounges, gambled a little, lost my money, could humorably, and gained a number of fashionable, good-for-nothing acquaintances. Had I more industry and ambition in my nature, I might have worked my way to the very height of fashion, as I saw many laborious gentlemen doing around me. But it is a toilsome, and anxious, and an unhappy life. There are few beings so sleepless and miserable, as your cultivators of fashionable smiles. I was quite content with that kind of society, which forms the frontiers of fashion, and may be easily taken possession of. I found it a light, easy, productive soil. I had but to go about, and so, visiting cards, and I reaped the whole harvest of invitations. Indeed, my figure and address were by no means against me. It was whisper, too, among the young ladies, that I was prodigiously clever and wrote poetry, and the old ladies had ascertaining that I was a young gentleman of good family, handsome fortune, and great expectations. I now was carried away by the hurry of gay life, so intoxicating to a young man, in which a man of vertical temperament enjoys so highly on his first tasting of it. That rapid variety of sensations, that whirl of brilliant objects, that succession of pungent pleasures. I had no time for thought. I only felt. I never attempted to write poetry. My poetry seemed all to go off by transpiration. I lived poetry. It was all a poetical dream to me. A mere sensualist knows nothing of the delights of a splendid metropolis. He lives in a round of animal gratifications and heartless habits. But to a young man of poetical feelings it is an ideal world, a scene of enchantment and delusion. His imagination is in perpetual excitement and gives a spiritual zest to every pleasure. A season of town life somewhat sobered me of my intoxication, for rather I was rendered more serious by one of my old complaints. I fell in love. It was with a very pretty, though a very haughty, fair one, who had come to London under the care of an old maid and aunt to enjoy the pleasures of the winter in town and to get married. There was not a doubt of her commanding a choice of lovers, for she had long been the belle of a little cathedral town, and one of the prependieres had absolutely celebrated her beauty in a copy of Latin verses. I paid my court to her, and was favorably received both by her and her aunt. Nay, I had a market preference showing me over the younger son of a needy baronet, and a captain of dragoons on half-pay. I did not absolutely take the field in form, for I was determined not to be precipitate, but I drove my echelopage frequently through the street in which she lived, and was always sure to see her at the window, generally with a book in her hand. I resumed my knack at rhyming and sent her a long copy of verses, anonymously to be sure, but she knew my handwriting. They displayed, however, the most delightful ignorance on the subject. The young lady showed them to me, wondered who they could be written by, and declared there is nothing in this world she loved so much as poetry. While the maid and aunt would put her pinching spectacles on her nose, and read them with blunders and sense and sound that were excruciating to an author's ears, protesting there is nothing equal to them in the whole elegant extracts. The fashionable season closed without my adventuring to make a declaration, though. I certainly had encouragement. I was not perfectly sure that I had affected the lodgement in the young lady's heart. And, to tell the truth, the aunt overdid her part, and was a little too extravagant in her liking of me. I knew that maid and aunts were not apt to be captivated by the mere personal merits of their nieces and daughters. And I went to ascertain how much of all this favor I owed to my driving in Ecopage, and having great expectations. I had received many hints how charming their native town was during the summer months, what pleasant society they had, what beautiful drives about the neighborhood. They had not, therefore, returned home long, before I made my appearance in dashing style, driving down the principal street. It is an easy thing to put a little quiet cathedral town in a buzz. The very next morning I was seen at prayers, seated in the pew of the reigning bell. All the congregation was in a flutter. Freebends eyed me from their stalls. Questions were whispered about the isles after service. Who is he? And what is he? And their replies were as usual. A young gentleman of good family and fortune and great expectations. I was pleased with the peculiarities of the cathedral town, where I found that was a personage of some consequence. I was quite a brilliant acquisition to the young ladies of the cathedral circle, who were glad to have a bow that was not in a black coat and clerical wig. You must know that there was a vast distinction between the classes of society of the town. As it was a place of some trade, there were many wealthy inhabitants among the commercial and manufacturing classes, who lived in style and gave many entertainments. A thing of trade, however, was emitted into the cathedral circle. Fuh! The thing could not be thought of. The cathedral circle, therefore, was apt to be very select, very dignified, and very dull. They had evening parties, at which the old ladies played cards with the pre-bends, and the young ladies sat and looked on, and shifted from one chair to another about the room, until it was time to go home. It was difficult to get up a ball from the want of partners, the cathedral circle of being very deficient in dancers, and on those occasions there was an occasional drafting among the dancing men of the other circle. Who, however, were generally regarded with great reserve and condescension by the gentlemen in powdered wigs. Several of the young ladies assured me, in confidence, they had often looked with a wistful eye at the gaiety of the other circle, where there was such plenty of young bow, and where they all seemed to enjoy themselves so merrily, but that it would be degradation to think descending from their sphere. I admired the degree of old fashion ceremony and superannuated courtesy that prevailed in this little place. The bowings and curtsyings that would take place about the cathedral porch after morning service, where knots of old gentlemen and ladies would collect together to ask after each other's health, and settle the card-party for the evening. The little presents of fruits and delicacies, and the thousand petty messages that would pass from house to house.  A dainty tidbit sent no doubt by some worthy old dowager to top off the dinner of her favorite pre-bend. Nothing could be more delectable also than the raking up of one of their evening-card parties, such shaking of hands, such mobbing up in cloaks and tippets. There were two or three old sedan-chairs that did the duty of the whole place, though the greater part made their exit in clogs and patents, with the footmen or waiting-maid carrying a lantern in advance, and in a certain hour of the night the clank of patents and the gleam of those jack-lanterns, here and there, but the quiet little town, gave notice that the cathedral-card party had dissolved, and the luminaries were severally seeking their homes. To such a community, therefore, or at least to the female part of it, the accession of a gay, dashing young beau, was a matter of some importance. The old ladies eyed me with complacency through their spectacles, and the young ladies pronounced me divine. Everybody received me favorably, excepting the gentleman who had written the Latin verses on the bell. I thought he was jealous of my success with the lady, for he had no pretensions to her. But he heard my verses of praise wherever he went, and he could not endure a rival with the muse. CHAPTER XVIII I was thus carrying everything before me. I was the Adonis of the Cathedral Circle, when one evening there was a public ball which was attended likewise by the gentry of the neighborhood. I took great pains with my toilet on the occasion, and I had never looked better. I had determined that night to make my grand assault on the heart of the young lady, to batter it with all my forces, and the next morning to demand a surrender in due form. I entered the ballroom amidst a buzz and flutter, which generally took place among the young ladies on my appearance. I was in fine spirits. For to tell the truth, I had exhilarated myself by a cheerful glass of wine on the occasion. I talked and rattled and said a thousand silly things, slap-dash with all the confidence of a man, sure of his auditors, and everything had its effect. In the midst of my triumph I observed the little knot gathering together in the upper part of the room. By degrees it increased. A tittering broke out there, and glances recast round at me. And then there would be fresh tittering. Some of the young ladies would hurry away to distant parts of the room and whisper to their friends. However they went, there was still this tittering and glancing at me. I did not know what to make of all this. I looked at myself from head to toe, and peeped at my back in a glass, to see if anything was odd about my person. Any awkward exposure? Any whimsical tag hanging out? No. Everything was right. I was a perfect picture. I determined that it must be some choice-saying of mine that it was handled about in this knot of merry beauties, and I determined to enjoy one of my good things in the rebound. I stepped gently therefore up the room smiling at every one as I passed, who I must say all smiled and tittered in return. I approached the group smirking and perking my chin like a man who was full of pleasant feeling, and sure of being well received. The cluster of little bells opened as I advanced. Heavens and Earth! Whom shall I perceive in the midst of them but my early and tormenting flame, the everlasting Sakharisa? She was grown up, it is true, into the full beauty of womanhood, but showed by the provoking merriment of her countenance that she perfectly recollected me, and the ridiculous flagellations of which she had twice been the cause. I saw at once the exterminating cloud of ridicule that was bursting over me. My crest fell. The flame of love went suddenly out in my bosom, or was extinguished by overwhelming shame. How I got down the room I know not. I fancied everyone, tittering at me. Just as I reached the door, I caught a glance of my mistress and her aunt, listening to the whispers of my poetic rival, the old lady raising her hands and eyes, and the face of the young one lighted up with scorn ineffable. I paused to see no more, but made two steps from the top of the stairs to the bottom. The next morning, before sunrise, I beat a retreat, and did not feel the blushes cool from my tingling cheeks until I had lost sight of the old towers of the cathedral. I now returned to town thoughtful and crestfallen. My money was nearly spent, for I lived freely and without calculation. The dream of love was over, and the reign of pleasure had an end. I determined to retrench while I had yet a trifle left. So selling my equipage and horses for half their value, I quietly put the money in my pocket and turned pedestrian. I had not a doubt that, with my great expectations, I could at any time raise funds, either on usury or by borrowing, but I was principled against both one and the other, and resolved, by strict economy, to make my slender purse hold out so my uncle should give up the ghost, or rather the estate. I stayed at home, therefore, and read, and would have written, but I had already suffered too much for my poetical productions, which had generally involved me in some ridiculous scrape. I gradually acquired a rusty look, and had a straightened, money-barrowing air, upon which the world began to shy me. I have never felt disposed to quarrel with the world for its conduct. It has always used me well. When I have been flush and gay and disposed for society, it has caressed me, and when I have been pinched and reduced, and wished to be alone, why, it has left me alone, and what more could a man desire? Take my word for it. This world is a more obliging world than people generally represent it. Well, sir, in the midst of my retrenchment, my retirement and my studiousness, I received news that my uncle was dangerously ill. I hastened on the wings of an heir's affection to receive his dying breath, and his last testament. I found him attended by his faithful valet, Old Iron John, by the woman who occasionally worked about the house, and by the foxy-headed boy, young Orson, who might occasionally hunted about the park. Iron John guessed a kind of asthmatical salutation as I entered the room, and received me with something almost like a smile of welcome.  My uncle lay stretched upon his back. The chamber was without a fire, or any of the comforts of a sick room. The cobwebs flaunted from the ceiling. The tester was covered with dust, and the curtains were tattered. From underneath the bed peeped out one end of his strong box. Against the whisket were suspended rusty blunderbuses, horse-pistols and a cut-and-thrust sword, with which he had fortified his room to defend his life and treasure. He had employed no physician during his illness, and from the scanty relics lying on the table seemed almost to have denied himself the assistance of a cook. When I entered the room, he was lying motionless, with his eyes fixed and his mouth open. At the first look I thought him a corpse. The noise of my entrance made him turn his head. At the sight of me a ghastly smile came over his face, and his glazing eye gleamed with satisfaction. It was the only smile he had ever given me, and it went to my heart. Poor old man, thought I, why would you not let me love you? Why would you force me to leave you thus desolate, when I see that my presence has the power to cheer you? Nephew! said he, after several efforts, and in a low, gasping voice, I am glad you are come. I shall now die with satisfaction. Look! said he, raising his withered hand and pointing. Look! in that box, on the table, you will find that I have not forgotten you. I pressed his hand to my heart, and the tears stood in my eyes. I sat down by his bedside, and watched him. But he never spoke again. My presence, however, gave him evident satisfaction, for every now and then, as he looked at me, a vague smile would come over his visage, and he would feebly point to the sealed box on the table. As the day wore away, his life seemed to wear away with it. Towards sunset his hand sunk on the bed, and lay motionless. His eyes grew glazed, his mouth remained open, and thus he gradually died. I could not but feel shocked at this absolute extinction of my kindred. I dropped a tear of real sorrow over this strange old man, who had thus reserved his smile of kindness to his deathbed. Like an evening sun, after a gloomy day, just shining out to set in darkness, leaving the corpse in charge of the domestics, I retired for the night. It was a rough night. The winds seemed as if singing my uncle's requiem about the mansion, and the bloodhounds howled without as if they knew of the death of their old master. Iron John almost grudged me the tallow candle to burn in my apartment and light up its juriness. So accustomed had he been to starvelling economy. I could not sleep. The recollection of my uncle's dying scene and the dreary sounds about the house affected my mind. These, however, were succeeded by plans for the future, and I lay awake the greater part of the night, indulging the poetical anticipation, how soon I would make these old walls ring with cheerful life and restore the hospitality of my mother's ancestors. My uncle's funeral was decent but private. I knew there was nobody that respected his memory, and I was determined that none should be summoned to sneer over his funeral wines and make merry at his grave. He was buried in the church of the neighboring village, though it was not the burying place of his race, but he had expressly enjoined that he should not be buried with his family. He quarreled with the most of them when living, and he carried his resentments even into the grave. I defrayed the expenses of the funeral out of my own purse that I might have done with the undertakers at once, and cleared the ill-oamened birds from the premises. I invited the parson of the parish and the lawyer from the village to attend at the house the next morning, and hear the reading of the will. I treated them to an excellent breakfast, a profusion that had not been seen at the house for many a year. As soon as the breakfast things were removed, I summoned Iron John, the woman, and the boy, for I was particular of having everyone present and proceeding regularly. The box was placed on the table. All was silence. I broke the seal, raised the lid, and beheld, not the will, but my accursed poem of doubting castle and giant despair. END OF CHAPTER XIII Would any mortal have conceived that this old, withered man, so taciturn, and apparently lost to feeling, could have treasured up for years the thoughtless pleasantry of a boy? To punish him with such cruel ingenuity I can now account for his dying smile, the only one he had ever given me. He had been a grave man all his life. It was strange that he should die in the enjoyment of a joke, and it was hard that that joke should be at my expense. The lawyer and the parson seemed at a loss to comprehend the matter. Here must be some mistake, said the lawyer. There is no will here. Oh! said Iron John, creaking forth his rusty jaws. If it is a will you are looking for, I believe I can find one. He retired with the same singular smile with which he had greeted me on my arrival, in which I now apprehended boated me no good. In a little while he returned, with a will, perfect at all points, properly signed and sealed and witnessed, worded with horrible correctness, in which he left large legacies to Iron John and his daughter, and the residue of his fortune to the foxy-headed boy, who, to my utter astonishment, was his son by this very woman. He having married her privately, and, as I verily believe, for no other purpose than to have an heir, and so block my father in his issue of the inheritance. There was one little proviso in which he mentioned that, having discovered his nephew to have a pretty turn for poetry, he presumed he had no occasion for wealth. He recommended him, however, to the patronage of his heir, and requested that he might have a garret, rent-free, and doubting castle. Mr. Buckthorne had paused at the death of his uncle, and the downfall of his great expectations, which formed, as he said, an epoch in his history, and it was not until some little time afterwards, and in a very sober mood, that he resumed his party- color narrative. After leaving the domains of my defunct uncle, said he, when the gate closed between me and what was once to have been mine, I felt thrust out naked into the world, and completely abandoned to fortune. What was to become of me? I had been brought up to nothing but expectations, and they had all been disappointed. I had no relations to look to for counsel or assistance. The world seemed all to have died away from me. Wave after wave of relationship had ebbed off, and I was left in mere hulk upon the strand. I am not apt to be greatly cast down, but at this time I felt sadly disheartened. I could not realize my situation, nor form a conjecture how I was to go forward. I was now too endeavored to make money. The idea was new and strange to me. It was like being asked to discover the philosopher's stone. I never thought about money, other than to put my hand into my pocket and find it, or if there was none there, to wait until a new supply came from home. I considered life as a mere space of time to be filled up with enjoyments, but to have it portioned out into long hours and days of toil merely that I might gain bread to give me strength to toil on. To labor but for the purpose of perpetuating a life of labor was new and appalling to me. This may appear a very simple matter to some, but it will be understood by every unlucky wit in my predicament who has had the misfortune of being born to great expectations. I passed several days in rambling about the scenes of my boyhood, partly because I absolutely did not know what to do with myself, and partly because I did not know that I should ever see them again. I clung to them as one clings to a wreck, though he knows he must eventually cast himself loose and swim for his life. I sat down on a hill within sight of my paternal home, but I did not venture to approach it, for I felt compunction at the thoughtlessness with which I had dissipated my patrimony. But was I to blame when I had the rich possessions of my curmudgeon of an uncle in expectation? The new possessor of the place was making great alterations. The house was almost rebuilt. The trees which stood about it were cut down. My mother's flower garden was thrown into a lawn. All was undergoing a change. I turned my back upon it with a sigh, and rambled to another part of the country. How thoughtful a little diversity makes one, as I came inside of the schoolhouse, where I had so often been flogged in the cause of wisdom. You would hardly have recognized a truant boy, who, but a few years since, had lobed so heedlessly from its walls. I leaned over the pailing of the playground, and watched the scholars at their games, and looked to see if there might not be some urchin among them, like I was once, full of gay dreams about life in the world. The playground seemed smaller than when I used to sport about it. The house in Park 2 of the neighboring Squire, the father of the cruel Saccharisa, had shrunk in size and diminished in magnificence. The distant hills no longer appeared so far off, and alas, no longer awakened ideas of a fairy land beyond. As I was rambling pensively through a neighboring meadow, in which I had many a time gathered primroses, I met the very pedagogue who had been the tyrant and dread of my boyhood. I had sometimes vowed to myself, when suffering under his rod, that I would have my revenge if ever I met him when I had grown to be a man. The time had come, but I had no disposition to keep my vow. The few years which had matured me into a vigorous man had shrunk him into decrepitude. He appeared to have had a paralytic stroke. I looked at him and wondered that this poor, helpless mortal could have been an object of terror to me, that I should have watched with anxiety the glance of that failing eye, or dreaded the power of that trembling hand. He tottered feebly along the path, and had some difficulty in getting over a style. I ran and assisted him. He looked at me with surprise, but did not recognize me. He made a low bow of humility and thanks. I had no disposition to make myself known, for I felt that I had nothing to boast of.  His repeated predictions were fully verified, and I felt that little Jack Buckthorn, the idle boy, had grown up to be a very good-for-nothing man. This is all very comfortless detail, but as I have told you of my follies, it is meat that I showed you how, for once, I was schooled for them. The most thoughtless of mortals will some time or other have this day of gloom when he will be compelled to reflect. I felt on this occasion as if I had a kind of penance to perform, and I made a pilgrimage in expiation of my past levity. Having passed a night at Leamington, I set off by a private path which leads up a hill, through a grove and across quiet fields. Until I came to the small village, a rather hamlet of Leamington, I sought the village church. It is an old, low edifice of grey stone on the brow of a small hill, looking over fertile fields to where the proud towers of Warwick Castle lifted themselves against the distant horizon. A part of the churchyard is shaded by large trees. Under one of these my mother lay buried. You have no doubt thought me a light heartless being. I thought myself so. But there are moments of adversity which led us into some feelings of our nature to which we might otherwise remain perpetual strangers. I sought my mother's grave. The weeds were already matted over it, and the tombstone was half-hid among nettles. I cleared them away, and they stung my hands. But I was heedless of the pain, for my heart ached too severely. I sat down on the grave, and read over and over again the epitaph on the stone. It was simple, but it was true. I had written it myself. I had tried to write a poetical epitaph. But in vain my feelings refused to utter themselves in rhyme. My heart had gradually been filling during my lonely wanderings. It was now charged to the brim and overflowed.  Yes, I wept in manhood upon the grave, as I had an infancy upon the bosom of my mother. Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness while living. How heedless are we in youth, of all her anxieties and kindness. But when she is dead and gone, when the cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts, when we find how hard it is to find true sympathy. How few love us for ourselves. How few will be friend us in our misfortunes. Than it is we think of the mother we have lost. It is true. I had always loved my mother. Even in my most heedless days. But I felt how inconsiderate and ineffectual had been my love. My heart melted as I retraced the days of my infancy.  Oh, that I were once more by your side, sleeping, never to wake again, like hairs and troubles of this world. I am not naturally of a morbid temperament, and the violence of my emotion gradually exhausted itself. It was a hearty, honest, natural discharge of griefs which had been slowly accumulating and gave me wonderful relief. I rose from the grave as if I had been offering up a sacrifice, and I felt as if that sacrifice had been accepted. I sat down again on the grass and plucked one by one the weeds from her grave. The tears trickled more slowly down my cheeks and ceased to be bitter. It was a comfort to think that she had died before sorrow and poverty came upon her child, and that all his great expectations were blasted. I leaned my cheek upon my hand, and looked upon the landscape. Its quiet beauty soothed me. The whistle of a peasant from an adjoining field came cheerily to my ear. I seemed to respire hope and comfort with the free air that whispered through the leaves and played lightly with my hair, and dried the tears upon my cheek. A lark rising from the field before me, and leaving, as it were, a stream of song behind him as he rose, lifted my fancy with him. He hovered in the air just above the place where the towers of Warwick Castle marked the horizon, and seemed as if fluttering with delight at his own melody. Surely, thought I, if there was such a thing as transmigration of souls as might be taken for some poet that loosed from earth but still reveling in song and caroling about fair fields and lordly towns. At this moment the long forgotten feeling of poetry rose within me. A thought sprung at once into my mind. I will become an author, said I. I fiddled too indulged in poetry as a pleasure, and it has brought me nothing but pain. Let me try what it will do when I cultivate it with devotion as a pursuit. The resolution thus suddenly aroused within me. He gave the load from off my heart. I felt a confidence in it from the very place where it was formed. It seemed as though my mother's spirit whispered it to me from her grave. I will henceforth, said I, endeavor to be all that she finally imagined me. I will endeavor to act as if she were witness of my actions. I will endeavor to equip myself in such manner that when I revisit her grave there may at least be no compunctious bitterness in my tears. I bowed down and kissed the turf and solemn attestation of my vow. I plucked some frim-roses that were growing there and laid them next to my heart. I left the churchyard with my spirits once more lifted up and set out a third time for London in the character of an author. End of Chapter 19 Recording by Greg Giardano Newport Richie, Florida Chapter 20 of Tales of a Traveller by Washington Irving This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Greg Giardano THE BOOBY SQUIRE A long time elapsed, said Buckthorn, without my receiving any accounts of my cousin and his estate. Indeed, I felt so much soreness on the subject that I wished, if possible, to shut it from my thoughts. At length chance took me into that part of the country and I could not refrain from making some inquiries. I learned that my cousin had grown up ignorant, self-willed, and clownish. His ignorance and clownishness had prevented his mingling with a neighbouring entry. In spite of his great fortune he had been unsuccessful in an attempt to gain the hand of the daughter of the parson and had at length shrunk into the limits of such society as a mere man of wealth can gather in a country neighbourhood. He kept horses and hounds in a roaring table, at which were collected the loose litters of the country road, and the shabby gentleman of a village in the vicinity. When he could get no other company he would smoke and drink with his own servants, who, in their turns, fleeced and despised him. Still, with all this apparent prodigality, he had eleven of the old man in him, which showed that he was his true-born son. He lived far within his income, was vulgar in his expenses, and panorious on many points on which a gentleman would be extravagant. His house servants were obliged occasionally to work on the estate, and part of the pleasure grounds were plowed up and devoted to husbandry. His table, though plentiful, was coarse, his liquors strong and bad, and more ale and whisky were expended in his establishment than generous wine. He was loud and arrogant at his own table, and exacted a rich man's homage from his vulgar and obsequious guests. As to Iron John, his old grandfather, he had grown impatient of the tight hand his own grandson kept over him, and quarreled with him soon after he came to the estate. The old man had retired to a neighboring village, where he lived on the legacy of his late master, in a small cottage, and was as seldom seen out of it as a rat out of his hole in daylight. The cub, like Caliban, seemed to have an instinctive attachment to his mother. She resided with him, but from long habit she acted more as servant than as mistress of the mansion. For she toiled in all the domestic drudgery, and was oftener in the kitchen than the parlor. Such was the information which I collected of my rival cousin, who had so unexpectedly elbowed me out of all my expectations. I now felt an irresistible hankering to pay a visit to this scene of my boyhood, and to get a peep at the odd kind of life that was passing within the mansion of my maternal ancestors. I determined to do so in disguise. My booby cousin had never seen enough of me to be very familiar with my countenance, and a few years make a great difference between youth and manhood. I understood he was a breeder of cattle, and proud of his stock. I addressed myself, therefore, as a substantial farmer, and with the assistance of a red scratch that came low down on my forehead, made a complete change in my physiognomy. It was past three o'clock when I arrived at the gate of the park, and was admitted by an old woman, who was washing in a dilapidated building, which had once been a porter's lodge. I advanced up the remains of a noble avenue, many of the trees of which had been cut down and sold for timber. The grounds were in scarcely better keeping than during my uncle's lifetime. The grass was overgrown with weeds, and the trees wanted pruning and clearing of dead branches. Cattle were grazing about the lawns, and ducks and geese swimming in the fishponds. The road to the house bore very few traces of carriage wheels, as my cousin received few visitors, but such as came on foot or on horseback, and never used a carriage himself. Once indeed, as I was told, he had had the old family carriage drawn out from among the dust and cobwebs of the coach house, and furbished up, and had drove, with his mother, to the village church to take formal possession of the family pew. But there was such hooting and laughing after them as they passed through the village, and such giggling and bantering about the church door that the pageant had never made a reappearance. As I approached the house, a legion of whelps saled out barking at me, accompanied by the low howling, rather than barking, of two old worn-out blood hounds, which I recognized for the ancient life-guards of my uncle. The house had still a neglected, random appearance, the much altered for the better, since my last visits. Several of the windows were broken and patched up with boards, and others had been bricked up to save taxes. I observed smoke, however, rising from the chimneys, a phenomenon rarely witnessed in the ancient establishment. On passing that part of the house where the dining-room was situated, I heard the sound of boisterous merriment, where three or four voices were talking at once, and oaths and laughter were horribly mingled. The uproar of the dogs had brought a servant to the door, a tall, hard-fisted country clown, with a livery coat put over the undergarments of a plowman. I requested to see the master of the house, but was told he was at dinner with some gemmin of the neighborhood. I made known my business, and sent in to know from my talk with the master about his cattle, for I felt a great desire to have a peep at him, or his orgies. Word was returned that he was engaged with company, and could not attend to business. But that if I would, quote, step in and take a drink of something, I was heartily welcome, end quote. I accordingly entered the hall, where whips and hats of all kinds and shapes were lying on an oaken table. Two or three clownish servants were lounging about. Everything had a look of confusion and carelessness. The apartments through which I passed had the same air of departed gentility and sluddish housekeeping. The once rich curtains were faded and dusty. The furniture greased and tarnished. When entering the dining-room, I found a number of odd, vulgar-looking, rustic gentlemen seated round a table on which were bottles, decanters, tankards, pipes, and tobacco. Several dogs relying about the room were sitting and watching their masters, and one was gnawing a bone under a side table. The master of the feast sat at the head of the board. He was greatly altered. He had grown thick-set and rather gummy, with a fiery, foxy head of hair. There was a singular mixture of foolishness, arrogance, and conceit in his countenance. He was dressed in a vulgarly fine style, with leather breeches, a red waistcoat, and green coat, and was evidently, like his guests, a little fleshed with drinking. The whole company stared at me with a whimsical, muggy look, like men whose senses were a little obstacated by beer rather than wine. My cousin, God forgive me, the appellation sticks in my throat. My cousin invited me with awkward civility, or, as he intended it, condescension, to sit to the table and drink. We talked, as usual, about the weather, the crops, politics, and hard times. My cousin was a loud politician, and evidently accustomed to talk, without contradiction at his own table. He was amazingly loyal, and talked of standing by the throne to the last guinea. Quote, as every gentleman of fortune should do. End quote. The village excisement, who was half asleep, could just ejaculate, very true, to everything he said. The conversation turned upon cattle. He boasted of his breed, his motive managing it, and of the general management of his estate. This unluckily drew on the history of the place and of the family. He spoke of my late uncle, with the greatest irreverence, which I could easily forgive. He mentioned my name, and my blood began to boil. He described my frequent visits to my uncle when I was a lad. And I found the varlet, even at that time, imp as he was, had known that he was to inherit the estate. He described the scene to my uncle's death, in the opening of the will, with a degree of coarse humor that I had not expected from him. And, vexed as I was, I could not help joining in the laugh, for I have always relished a joke, even though made at my own expense. He went on to speak of my various pursuits, my strolling freak, and that somewhat meddled me, had lengthy talked of my parents. He ridiculed my father. I stomached even that, though with great difficulty. He mentioned my mother with a sneer. And in an instant he lay sprawling at my feet. Here, a scene of tumult succeeded. The table was nearly overturned. Bottles, glasses, and tankards rolled crashing and clattering about the floor. The company seized hold of both of us to keep us from doing farther mischief. I struggled to get loose, for I was boiling with fury. My cousin defied me to strip and fight him on the lawn. I agreed, for I felt the strength of a giant in me, and I longed to pummel him, soundly. Away then we were born. A ring was formed. I had a second assigned me in true boxing style. My cousin, as he advanced to fight, said something about his generosity and shoving me such fair play. When I had made such an unprovoked attack upon him at his own table. Stop there! cried I, in a rage. Unprovoked? Know that I am John Buckthorn, and you have insulted the memory of my mother. The lout was suddenly struck by what I said. He drew back and reflected for a moment.  That's too much. That's clear another thing. I have a mother myself, and no one shall speak ill of her, bad as she is. He paused again. Nature seemed to have a rough struggle in his rude bosom. Damn it, cousin! cried he. I'm sorry for what I said. Thou served me right in knocking me down. And I like neither better for it. Here's my hand. Come and live with me. And damn but the best room in the house, and the best horse in the stable, shall be at thy service. I declare to you I was strongly moved at this instance of nature breaking her way through such a lump of flesh. I forgave the fellow in a moment all his crimes of having been born in wedlock, and inheriting my estate. I shook the hand he offered me, to convince him that I bore him no ill will, and in making my way through the gaping crowd of toad-eaters, bait adieu to my uncle's domains for ever. This is the last I have seen or heard of my cousin, or of the domestic concerns of doubting castle. CHAPTER XIX The Strolling Manager As I was walking one morning with Buckthorn, near one of the principal theaters, he directed my attention to a group of those equivocal beings that may often be seen hovering about the staged doors of theaters.  Buckthorn knew them well by early experience. CHAPTER XIX These, said he, are the ghosts of departed kings and heroes. Fellows who sway scepters and truncheons, command kingdoms and armies, and after giving way realms and treasures overnight, have scarce a shilling to pay for a breakfast in the morning. Yet they have the true vagabond abhorrence of all useful and industrious employment, and they have their pleasures too, one of which is to lounge in this way in the sunshine, at the staged door, during rehearsals, and make hackneyed theatrical jokes on all passers-by. Nothing is more traditional and legitimate than the stage. Old scenery, old clothes, old sentiments, old ranting, and old jokes, are handed down from generation to generation, and will probably continue to be so, until time shall be no more. Every hanger-on of a theater becomes a wag by inheritance, and flourishes about in tap-rooms and six-penny clubs, with the property jokes of the green room. While amusing ourselves with connoitering this group, we notice one in particular, who appeared to be the oracle. He was a weather-beaten veteran, a little bronze by time and beer, who had no doubt grown gray in the parts of robbers, cardinals, Roman senators, and walking noblemen. Quote, There's something in the set of that hat, in the turn of that physionomy, that is extremely familiar to me, said Buckthorn. He looked a little closer. I cannot be mistaken, added he. There must be my old brother of the truncheon, Flimsy, the tragic hero of the strolling company. End quote. It was he, in fact. The poor fellow showed evident signs that Himes went hard with him. He was so finely and shabbily dressed. His coat was somewhat threadbare, and of the Lord Townley cut, cobreasted, and scarcely capable of meeting in front of his body, which, for the long intimacy, had acquired the symmetry and robustness of a beer barrel. He wore a pair of dingy white stockinette pantaloons, which had much adieu to reach his waistcoat, a great quantity of dirty cravat, and a pair of old russet-colored tragedy boots. When his companions had dispersed, Buckthorn drew him aside, and made himself known to him. The tragic veteran could scarcely recognize him, or believe that he was, really, his quantum associate. Quote, a little gentleman jack. End quote. Buckthorn invited him to a neighboring coffee-house, to talk over old times. And in the course of a little while, we were put in possession of his history in brief. He had continued to act the heroes in the strolling company for some time, after Buckthorn had left it, where rather had been driven from it so abruptly. Had length the manager died, and the troop was thrown into confusion. Everyone aspired to the crown. Everyone was for taking the lead, and the manager's widow, although a tragedy queen, and a brimstone to boot, pronounced utterly impossible to keep any control over such a set of tempestuous rascallions. Upon this hint I spoke, said Flimsy. I stepped forward and offered my services in the most effectual way. They were accepted. In a week's time I married the widow, and succeeded to the throne. Quote, the funeral-baked meat did coldly furnish forth the marriage table. End quote, as Hamlet says. But the ghost of my predecessor never haunted me. And I inherited crowns, sceptres, bowls, daggers, and all the stage trappings and trumpery, not omitting the widow without the least molestation. I now led a flourishing life of it, for our company was pretty strong, and attractive, and as my wife and I took the heavy parts of tragedy, it was a great saving to the treasury. We carried off the palm from all the rival shows at country fairs. And I assure you, we have even drawn full houses, and being applauded by the critics at Bartlemy Fair itself, that we had Astley's Troop, the Irish Giant, end quote, the death of Nelson, end quote, in waxwork to contend against. I soon began to experience, however, the cares of command. I discovered that there were cabals breaking out in the company, headed by the clown, who you may recollect was a terribly peevish, fractious fellow, and always an ill-humour. I had a great mind to turn him off at once. But I could not do without him, for there was not a drool or scoundrel on the stage. His very shape was comic, for he had to turn his back upon the audience, and all the ladies were ready to die with laughing. He felt his importance and took advantage of it. He would keep the audience in a continual roar, and then come behind the scenes, and fret and fume and play the very devil. I excused a great deal in him, however, knowing that comic actors are a little prone to this infirmity of temper. I had another trouble of a nearer and dearer nature to struggle with, which was the affection of my wife. As ill luck would have it, she took it into her head to be very fond of me, and became intolerably jealous. I could not keep a pretty girl in the company, and hardly dared embrace an ugly one, even when my part required it. I have known her to reduce a fine lady to tatters, quote, to very rags, end quote, as Hamlet says, in an instant and destroy one of the very best dresses in the wardrobe, merely because she saw me kiss her at the side scenes, though I give you my honor, it was done merely by way of rehearsal. This was doubly annoying, because I have a natural liking to pretty faces, and wish to have them about me, and because they are indispensable to the success of a company at a fair, where one has to vie with so many rival-theaters. But when once a jealous wife gets a freak in her head, there's no use in talking of interest or anything else. Ye gads, sirs, I have more than once trembled, when, during a fit of her tantrums, she was playing high tragedy, and flourishing her tin dagger on the stage, lest she should give way to her humor, and stab some fancied rival in good earnest. I went on better, however, than could be expected, considering the weakness of my flesh, and the violence of my rib. I had not a much worse time of it than old Jupiter, whose spouse was continually ferreting out some new intrigue, and making the heavens almost too hot to hold him. At length, as luck would have it, we were performing at a country fair, when I understood the theatre of a neighboring town to be vacant. I had always been desirous to be enrolled in a subtle company, and the height of my desire was to get on at par with a brother-in-law, who was manager of a regular theatre, and who would look down upon me. Here was an opportunity not to be neglected. I concluded an agreement with the proprietors, and in a few days opened the theatre with great acclaim. Behold me now at the summits of my ambition. Quote, the high-top gallant of my joy. End quote, as Thomas says. No longer a chieftain of a wandering tribe, but the monarch of a legitimate throne, and entitled to call even the great potonates of Covent Garden and Drury Lane Cousin. You no doubt think my happiness complete. Alas, sir, I was one of the most uncomfortable dogs living. No one knows, who has not tried, the miseries of a manager, but above all of a country management. No one can conceive the contentions and quarrels within doors, the oppressions and vexations from without. I was pestered with the bloods and loungers of a country town, who infested my green room, and played the mischief among my actresses. But there was no shaking them off. It would have been ruined to affront them, for, though troublesome friends, they would have been dangerous enemies. And there were the village critics and village amateurs, who were continually tormenting me with advice, and getting into a passion if I would not take it. Especially the village doctor, and the village attorney, who had both been to London occasionally, and knew what acting should be. I had also to manage an errant crew of scapegraces, as were ever collected together within the walls of a theatre. I had been obliged to combine my original troop with some of the former troop of the theatre, who were favourites with the public. Here was a mixture that produced perpetual ferment. They were all the time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong. And if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me, for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good-natured fellow, the worst character that a manager can possess. Their waggery at times drove me almost crazy. There is nothing so vexatious as the hackneyed tricks and hoaxes and pleasantries of a veteran band of theatrical vagabonds. I relished them well enough, it is true, while I was merely one of the company. But as manager I found them detestable. They were incessantly bringing some disgrace upon the theatre, by their tavern frolics, and their pranks about the country town. All my lectures upon the importance of keeping up the dignity of the profession, and the respectability of the company were in vain. The villains could not sympathize with the delicate feelings of a man in station. They even trifled with the seriousness of stage business. I have had the whole piece interrupted, and a crowded audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept waiting. Because the actors had hit away the breaches of Rosalind, and have known Hamlet stalk Somme Leon to deliver his soliloquy, with a dish-clout pinned to his skirts. Such are the baleful consequences of a manager's getting a character for good nature. I was intolerably annoyed, too, by the great actors who came down starring, as it is called, from London. Of all baneful influences, keep me from that of a London star. A first-rate actress going in the rounds of the country theatres is as bad as a blazing comet, whisking about the heavens and shaking fire and plagues and discords from its tail. The moment one of these heavenly bodies appeared on my horizon, I was sure to be in hot water. My theatre was overrun by provincial dandies, copper-washed counterfeits of Bond Street loungers, who were always proud to be in the train of an actress from town, and anxious to be thought on exceeding good terms with her. It was really a relief to me when some random young nobleman would come in pursuit of the bait, and all this small fry to a distance. I have always felt myself more at ease with a nobleman than with the dandy of a country town. And then the injuries I suffered in my personal dignity, in my managerial authority from the visits of these great London actors. Sir, I was no longer master of myself or my throne. I was hectered and lectured in my own green-room, and made an absolute and income poop on my own stage. There is no tyrant so absolute and capricious as a London star at a country theatre. I dreaded the sight of all of them. And yet, if I did not engage them, I was sure of having the public clamorous against me. They drew full houses and appeared to be making my fortune. But they swallowed up all the profits by their insatiable demands. They were absolute tapeworms to my little theatre. The more it took in, the poorer it grew. They were sure to leave me with an exhausted public, empty benches, and a score or two of fronts to settle among the townsfolk, and consequence of misunderstandings about the taking of places. But the worst thing I had to undergo in my managerial career was patronage. Oh, sir, of all things deliver me from the patronage of the great people of a country town. It was my ruin. You must know that this town, though small, was filled with feuds and parties and great folks, being a busy little trading and manufacturing town. The mischief was that their greatness was of a kind not to be settled by reference to the court calendar or college of heraldry. It was there for the most quarrelsome kind of greatness in existence. You smile, sir. But let me tell you there are no feuds more furious than the frontier feuds, which take place on these debatable lands of gentility. The most violent dispute that I ever knew in high life was one that occurred at a country town. On a question of precedence between the ladies of a manufacturer of pins and a manufacturer of needles. At the town where I was situated there were perpetual altercations of the kind. The head manufacturer's lady, for instance, was at daggers, drawings with the head-shop keepers, and both were too rich and had too many friends to be treated lightly. The doctors and lawyers' ladies held their heads still higher. But they, in their turn, were kept in check by the wife of a country banker, who kept her own carriage, while a masculine widow of cracked humor and secondhand fashion, who lived in a large house, and was in some way related to nobility, looked down upon them all. She had been exiled from the great world, but here she ruled absolute. To be sure her manners were not over elegant, nor her fortune ever large. But then, sir, her blood.  There is nowithstanding a woman with such blood in her veins.  Then she had two dashing daughters, who dressed as fine as dragons, and had as high blood as their mother, and seconded her in everything. So they carried their point with high heads, and everybody hated, abused, and stood in awe of the phantatlins. Such was the state of the fashionable world in this self-important little town. Unluckily I was not as well acquainted with its politics as I should have been. I had found myself a stranger and in great perplexities during my first season. I determined, therefore, to put myself under the patronage of some powerful name, and thus to make the field with the prejudices of the public in my favor. I cast round my thoughts for the purpose, and in an evil hour they fell upon Mrs. Phantatlin. No one seemed to me to have a more absolute sway in the world of fashion. I had always noticed that her party slammed the box door the loudest at the theatre, had most beau attending on them, and talked and laughed loudest during the performance. And then the Miss Phantatlins were always more feathers and flowers than any other ladies, and used quizzing glasses incessantly. The first evening of my theatre's reopening, therefore, was announced in flaring capitals on the playbills. Quote, under the patronage of the Honourable, Mrs. Phantatlin. Sir, the whole community flew to arms. The banker's wife felt her dignity grievously insulted in not having the preference. Her husband being high bailiff and the richest man in the place. She immediately issued invitations for a large party for the night of the performance, and asked many a lady to do it whom she had never noticed before. The fashionable world had long grown under the tyranny of the Phantatlins, and were glad to make a common cause against this new instance of assumption. Resumed to patronize the theatre, insufferable. Those too who had never before been noticed by the banker's lady, were ready to enlist in any quarrel for the honour of her acquaintance. All minor feuds were therefore forgotten. The doctor's lady and the lawyer's lady met together. And the manufacturer's lady and the shopkeeper's lady kissed each other.  And Mr. Walker's, I did anonian. Alas, for poor pill-garlic! I little knew the mischief that was brewing against me. My box-book remained blank. The evening arrived, but no audience. The music struck up to a tolerable pit in gallery, but no fashionables. I peeped anxiously from behind the curtain, but the time passed away. The play was retarded until pit in gallery became furious, and I had to raise the curtain and play my greatest part in tragedy to a, quote, a biggerly account of empty boxes. It is true the phantadolans came late, as was their custom, and entered like a tempest, with a flutter of feathers and red shawls. But they were evidently disconcerted at finding they had no one to admire and envy them, and were enraged at this glaring defection of their fashionable followers. All the Beaumond were engaged at the banker's lady's route. They remained for some time in solitary, in uncomfortable state, and though they had the theater almost to themselves, yet for the first time they talked in whispers. They left the house at the end of the first piece, and I never saw them afterwards. Such was the rock in which I split. I never got over the patronage of the phantadolin family. It became the vogue to abuse the theater and declare their performer shocking. An equestrian troupe opened a circus in the town about the same time, and rose on my ruins. My house was deserted. My actors grew discontented, because they were ill-paid. My door became a hammering place for every bailiff in the county, and my wife became more and more shrewish and tormenting, the more I wanted comfort. The establishment now became a scene of confusion and speculation. I was considered a ruined man, and of course fair game for everyone to pluck at, as everyone plunders a sinking ship. Day after day some of the troupe deserted, and like deserting soldiers, carried off their arms and accoutrements with them. In this manner my wardrope took legs and walked away. My finery strolled all over the country. My swords and daggers glittered in every barn. Until at last my tailor made one fell swoop, and carried off three dress-coats, half a dozen doublets, and nineteen pair of flesh-colored pantaloons. This was the, quote, be all, and the end all, end quote, of my fortune. I no longer hesitated what to do. E. Gadd, thought I, since dealing is the order of the day, I'll steal too. So I secretly gathered together the jewels of my wardrope, packed up a hero's dress and a handkerchief, slung in on the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off it dead of night, quote, the bell then beating one, end quote, leaving my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and my merciless foes, the bum bailiffs. Such, sir, was the, quote, end of all my greatness, end quote. I was heartily cursed, of all passion for governing, and returned once more into the ranks.  I played in various country theaters, at fairs and in barns. Sometimes hard-pushed, sometimes flush. Until, on one occasion, I came within an ace of making my fortune, and becoming one of the wonders of the age. I was playing the part of Richard III in a country barn, and absolutely, outheriting Herod, an agent of one of the great London theaters, was present. He was on the lookout for something that might be got up as a prodigy. The theater, it seems, was in desperate condition. Nothing but a miracle could save it. He pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in my gait, and having taken to drink a little during my troubles, my voice was somewhat cracked, so that it seemed like two voices run into one. The thought struck the agent to bring me out as a theatrical wonder, as the restorer of natural and legitimate acting, as the only one who could understand and act Shakespeare rightly. He waited upon me the next morning, and opened his plan. I shrunk from it with becoming modesty. For well as I thought of myself, I felt myself unworthy of such praise. "'Sblood, man!' said he. No praise at all. You don't imagine that I think you all this. I only want the public to think so. Nothing so easy as gulling the public, if you only set up a prodigy. You need not try to act well. You must only act furiously, no matter what you do, or how you act, so that it be but odd and strange. We will have all the pit-packed, and the newspapers hired. Whatever you do different from famous actors, it shall be insisted that you are right and they were wrong. If you rant, it shall be pure passion. If you are vulgar, it shall be a touch of nature. Every one shall be prepared to fall into raptures, and shout and yell at certain points which you shall make. If you do but escape helting the first night, your fortune and the fortune of the theatre is made." I set off for London, therefore, full of new hopes. I was to be the restorer of Shakespeare and nature, and the legitimate drama. My very swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice the standard of elocution. Alas, sir, my usual look attended me. Before I arrived in the metropolis, a rival wonder had appeared. A woman who could dance the slackrope and run up a cord from the stage to the gallery, with fireworks all around her. She was seized on by the management with avidity. She was the saving of the great National Theatre for the season. Nothing was talked of, but Madame Sequie's fireworks and flame-colored pantaloons and nature. Shakespeare, the legitimate drama, and poor pill-garlic, were completely left in the lurch. However, as the manager was an honour bound to provide for me, he kept his word. It had been a turn-up of a die whether I should be Alexander the Great or Alexander the Coppersmith. The latter carried it. I could not be put at the head of the drama, so I was put at the tail. In other words, I was enrolled among the number of what are called useful men, who, let me tell you, are the only comfortable actors on the stage. We are safe from hisses and below the hope of applause. We fear not the success of rivals nor dread the critics' pen. So long as we get the words of our parts, and they are not often many, it is all we care for. We have our own merriment, our own friends, and our own admirers. For every actor has his friends and admirers, from the highest to the lowest. The first-rate actor dines with the noble amateur, and entertains a fashionable table with scraps and songs and theatrical slip-slop. The second-rate actors have their second-rate friends and admirers, with whom they likewise spout tragedy and talk slip-slop. And so down, even to us, who have our friends and admirers, among spruce clerks and aspiring apprentices, who treat us to a dinner now and then, and enjoy at tenth hand the same scraps and songs and slip-slop that have been served up by our more fortunate brethren at the tables of the great. I now, for the first time in my theatrical life, knew what true pleasure is. I have known enough of notoriety to pity the poor devils who were called favorites of the public. I would rather be a kitten in the arms of a spoiled child, to be one moment petted and pampered, and the next moment thumped over the head with the spoon. I smile, too, to see our leading actors fretting themselves with envy and jealousy about a trumpery renown, questionable in its quality and uncertain in its duration. I laugh, too, though, of course, in my sleeve, at the bustle and importance and trouble and perplexities of our manager, who is harassing himself to death in the hopeless effort to please everybody. I have found, among my fellow subalterns, two or three quantum managers, who, like myself, have wielded deceptors of country-theaters, and we have many a slide-joke together at the expense of the manager and the public. Sometimes, too, we meet like deposed and exiled kings, talk over the events of our respective reins, moralize over a tankard of ale, and laugh at the humbug of the great and little world. Which, I take it, is the very essence of practical philosophy. Thus end the anecdotes of Buck Thorn and his friends. A few mornings after our hearing the history of the ex-manager, he bounced into my room before I was out of bed. Quote, Give me joy, give me joy! said he, rubbing his hands with the utmost glee. My great expectations are realized." I stared at him, the look of wonder, and inquiry. Quote, My booby cousin is dead! cried he. May he rest in peace. He nearly broke his neck in a fall from his horse in a fox-chase. By good luck he lived long enough to make his will. He has made me his heir, partly out of an odd feeling of retributive justice, and partly because, as he says, none of us own family or friends know how to enjoy such an estate. I'm off to the country to take possession. I've done with authorship. That for the critics, said he, snapping his fingers. Come down to doubting castle when I get subtle. Any gad, I'll give you a rouse." So saying, he shook me heartily by the hand, and bounded off in high spirits. A long time elapsed before I heard from him again. Indeed, it was but a short time since that I received a letter written in the happiest of moods. He was getting the estate into fine order. Everything went to his wishes. And what was more, he was married to Saccharisa, who, it seems, had always entertained an ardent, though secret attachment for him, which he fortunately discovered just after coming to his estate. Quote, I find, said he, you are a little given to the sin of authorship, which I renounce. If the anecdotes I have given you of my story are of any interest, you may make use of them. But come down to doubting castle and see how we live. And I'll give you my whole London life over a social glass, and a rattling history it shall be about authors and reviewers." If ever I visit doubting castle and get the history he promises, the public shall be sure to hear of it.