at was almost sure to follow
his fatal patronage, while his seeming generosity increased his
influence, and silenced those who might have spoken against him. In
equipage, appearance, and manners, he was the ornament of the
regiment, and considered by those authorities who did not inquire
into morals, as a most promising young officer of high character and
attainments.

I shall not weary you with any details of the next five years of his
military life, of his peace campaigns, and marches from one town to
another. But his track was marked with mischief wherever he went. He
had several times, from his expensive mode of living, been obliged to
appeal to his uncle for assistance, which was always rendered,
accompanied, of course, by long and ineffectual lectures on the
necessity of reformation. But the old man was flattered at his
nephew's popularity, and pleased with his varied powers and
accomplishments; by plausible representations, too, he was convinced
that the irregularities which occasionally reached even his ears, were
but the exuberance of youth, and the effervescence of a high spirit.
Latterly, however, when the applications for money became more
frequent, and the rumours of his dissipated life more numerous and
authentic, the Squire, after having discharged all existing debts,
communicated his determination to limit his nephew strictly within the
allowance for the future, and to refuse to meet any further
liabilities.

Cautious, cool-headed, and able as Meynell was, he was wanting in that
self-command necessary to alter his mode of life; his expensive habits
and vices had, through long indulgence, become almost necessaries of
existence. With his eyes fully open to his danger, he still kept on in
the dark path that led to the ruin to which he had ruthlessly
consigned many an other, supported the while by a vague hope that some
lucky chance would turn up to carry him through his difficulties.
Tradesmen became pressing with their accounts,--he drew bills on his
agent, renewed these when they became due, and drew others. This could
not last long; the value of his commission was soon mortgaged; he
borrowed money of advertising bill-discounters at enormous interest,
and, in short, by the summer of 1834, Henry Meynell was a ruined man.

At this period he had just marched with his regiment into a large
seaport town in the south of England, where they were to be quartered
for some time. About two miles inland from this