my boy, that Hamlet never strives to
speak a word of comfort to the forlorn old Dane? He felt it would not
do. Every man that's worth a button knows his own case best; and I know
the secrets of my own prison-house. Sown my wild oats! To be sure I
have, Puddock, my boy; and the new leaf I've turned over is just this;
I've begun to reap them; and they'll grow, my boy, and grow as long as
grass grows; and--Macbeth has his dagger, you know, and I've my
sickle--the handle towards my hand, that you can't see; and in the sweat
of my brow, I must cut down and garner my sheaves; and as I sowed, so
must I reap, and grind, and bake, the black and bitter grist of my
curse. Don't talk nonsense, little Puddock. Wasn't it Gay that wrote the
"Beggar's Opera?" Ay! Why don't you play Macheath? Gay!--Ay--a pleasant
fellow, and his poems too. He writes--don't you remember--he writes,

'So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er--
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.'

'Puddock, throw up that window, the room's too hot--or stay never mind;
read a book, Puddock, you like it, and I'll stroll a little along the
path, and find you when I come back.'

'Why it's dark,' remonstrated his visitor.

'Dark? I dare say--yes, of course--very dark--but cool; the air is
cool.'

He talked like a man who was thinking of something else; and Puddock
thought how strangely handsome he looked, with that pale dash of horror,
like King Saul when the evil spirit was upon him; and there was a
terrible misgiving in his mind. The lines of the old ballad that
Devereux used to sing with a sort of pathetic comicality were humming in
his ear,--

'He walked by the river, the river so clear--
The river that runs through Kilkenny;
His name was Captain Wade,
And he died for that fair maid.'

and so following. What could he mean by walking, at that hour, alone, by
the river's brink? Puddock, with a sinking and flutter at his heart,
unperceived, followed him down stairs, and was beside him in the street.

'The path by the river?' said Puddock.

'The river--the path? Yes, Sir, the path by the river. I thought I left
you up stairs,' said Devereux, with an odd sort of sulky shrinking.

'Why, Devereux, I may as well walk with you, if you don't object,'
lisped Puddock.

'But I do object, Sir,' cried Devereux, suddenly, in a fierce high key,
turning upon his little comrade. 'What d'ye mean, Sir? You think I mean
to--to _drown_ myself--ha, ha, h