ce itself was the tone of his reflections. All that he might
have been, all that lay so easily within his reach, all that life
once offered him, contrasted bitterly with what he now saw himself.
Conscience, it is true, suggested few of his present pangs; he
believed--ay, sincerely believed--that he had been more "sinned against
than sinning." Such a one had "let him in" here; such another "had sold
him" there. In his reminiscences he saw himself trustful, generous, and
confiding, while the world--the great globe that includes Tattersalls,
Goodwood, Newmarket, and Ascot--was little better than a nest of knaves
and vagabonds.

Why could n't Lackington get him something abroad,--in the Brazils or
Lima, for instance? He was n't quite sure where they were; but they were
far away, he thought,--places too remote for Grog Davis to hunt him out,
and whence he could give the great Grog a haughty defiance. They--how
it would have puzzled him to say who "they" were--they couldn't refuse
Lackington if he asked. He was always voting and giving his proxies, and
doing all manner of things for them; he made a speech, too, last year
at Hoxton, and gave a lecture upon something that must have served
them. Lackington would begin the old story about character; "but who had
character nowadays?" "Take down the Court Guides," cried he, aloud, "and
let _me_ give you the private life and adventures of each as you
read out the names. Talk of _me!_ why, what have I done equal to what
Lockwood, Hepton, Bulkleigh, Frank Melton, and fifty more have done? No,
no; for public life, now, they must do as a sergeant of the Ninety-fifth
told me t' other day, 'We 're obliged to take 'em little, sir, and glad
to get 'em too!'"

It might be that there was something grateful to his feelings,
reassuring to his heart, in this reflection, for he walked along now
more briskly, and his head higher than before. Without being aware, he
had already gone some miles from the town, and now found himself in one
of those long grassy alleys which traversed the dense wood in various
directions. As he looked down the narrow road which seemed like the
vast aisle of some Gothic cathedral, he felt a sort of tremulous motion
beneath his feet; and then, the moment after, he could detect the
measured tramp of a horse at speed. A slight bend of the alley had
hitherto shut out the view; but, suddenly, a dark object came sweeping
round the turn and advancing towards him.

[Illustrat