said the master was as mad as the man. "Tell me your
company," says the old proverb; and you see there it is. What comes of
it? If you lie down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas; and that's the
fruits of travelling with a fool.'

I was in no temper for badinage at the moment, and replied to the poor
fellow in a somewhat harsher tone than I should have used; and as he
left the room without speaking, I felt ashamed and angry with myself
for thus banishing the only one that seemed to feel an interest in my
fortunes.

I sat down to my dinner discontented and unhappy. But a few hours
previous, and I awoke high in heart and hope; and now without any
adverse stroke of fortune, without any of those casualties of fate which
come on us unlooked for and unthought of, but simply by the un-guided
exercise of a passionate temperament, I found myself surrounded by
embarrassments and environed by difficulties, without one friend to
counsel or advise me.

Yes--I could not conceal it from myself--my determination to ride the
steeplechase was the mere outbreak of passion. The taunting insolence
of Burke had stung me to adopt a course which I had neither previously
considered, nor, if suggested by another, could ever have consented to.
True, I was what could be called a good horseman. In the two seasons I
had spent in Leicestershire, on a visit to a relative, I had acquitted
myself with credit and character; but a light weight splendidly mounted
on a trained hunter, over his accustomed country, has no parallel with
the same individual upon a horse he has never crossed, over a country he
has never seen. These and a hundred similar considerations came rushing
on me now when it was too late. However, the thing was done, and
there being no possible way of undoing it, there was but one road, the
straightforward, to follow in the case. Alas! half of our philosophy in
difficulties consists in shutting our eyes firmly against consequences,
and, _tete baissee_, rushing headlong at the future. Though few may be
found willing to admit that the bull in the china-shop is the model of
their prudence, I freely own it was mine, and that I made up my mind to
ride the horse with the unspeakable name as long as he would permit
me to ride him, at everything, over everything, or through everything
before me. This conclusion at length come to, I began to feel more easy
in my mind. Like the felon that feels there is no chance of a reprieve,
I could look my