help me on a pinch, and who produced
sixty guineas from a stocking. This was all the ready money that Barry
Lyndon, of Castle Lyndon, and married to a fortune of forty thousand a
year, could command: such had been the havoc made in this fine fortune
by my own extravagance (as I must confess), but chiefly by my misplaced
confidence and the rascality of others.

We did not start in state, you may be sure. We did not let the country
know we were going, or leave notice of adieu with our neighbours. The
famous Mr. Barry Lyndon and his noble wife travelled in a hack-chaise
and pair to Waterford, under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and thence
took shipping for Bristol, where we arrived quite without accident. When
a man is going to the deuce, how easy and pleasant the journey is! The
thought of the money quite put me in a good humour, and my wife, as she
lay on my shoulder in the post-chaise going to London, said it was the
happiest ride she had taken since our marriage.

One night we stayed at Reading, whence I despatched a note to my agent
at Gray's Inn, saying I would be with him during the day, and begging
him to procure me a lodging, and to hasten the preparations for the
loan. My Lady and I agreed that we would go to France, and wait there
for better times; and that night, over our supper, formed a score of
plans both for pleasure and retrenchment. You would have thought it
was Darby and Joan together over their supper. O woman! woman! when I
recollect Lady Lyndon's smiles and blandishments--how happy she seemed
to be on that night! what an air of innocent confidence appeared in
her behaviour, and what affectionate names she called me!--I am lost
in wonder at the depth of her hypocrisy. Who can be surprised that an
unsuspecting person like myself should have been a victim to such a
consummate deceiver!

We were in London at three o'clock, and half-an-hour before the time
appointed our chaise drove to Gray's Inn. I easily found out Mr.
Tapewell's apartments--a gloomy den it was, and in an unlucky hour I
entered it! As we went up the dirty back-stair, lighted by a feeble lamp
and the dim sky of a dismal London afternoon, my wife seemed agitated
and faint.

'Redmond,' said she, as we got up to the door, 'don't go in: I am
sure there is danger. There's time yet; let us go back--to
Ireland--anywhere!' And she put herself before the door, in one of her
theatrical attitudes, and took my hand.

I just pushed her away to