George exclaimed, "I wonder how people can be such fools as to be drunkards! I will never be a drunkard, mother; and now I know the reason why you desired me not to drink the wine, when Mrs. Dolly used to say to me, 'Down with it, George dear, it will do ye no harm.'"

These circumstances made such an impression upon George that there was no further occasion to watch him; he always pushed away the glass when Mrs. Dolly filled it for him.

One day his mother said to him, "Now I can trust you to take care of yourself, George, I shall not watch you. Mrs. Dolly is going to a bowling-green tea-party this evening, and has asked you to go with her; and I have told her you shall."

George accordingly went with Mrs. Dolly to the bowling-green. The company drank tea out of doors, in summer-houses. After tea, Mrs. Dolly bid George go and look at the bowling-green; and George was very well entertained with seeing the people playing at bowls; but when it grew late in the evening, and when the company began to go away, George looked about for Mrs. Dolly. She was not in the summer-house, where they had drunk tea, nor was she any where upon the terrace round the bowling-green; so he went to the public-house in search of her, and at last found her standing at the bar with the landlady. Her face was very red, and she had a large glass of brandy in her hand, into which the landlady was pouring some drops, which she said were excellent for the stomach.

Mrs. Dolly started so when she saw George, that she threw down half her glass of brandy. "Bless us, child! I thought you were safe at the bowling-green," said she.

"I saw every body going away," answered George; "so I thought it was time to look for you, and to go home."

"But before you go, my dear little gentleman," said the landlady, "you must eat one of these tarts, for my sake." As she spoke, she gave George a little tart: "and here," added she, "you must drink my health too in something good. Don't be afraid, love; it's nothing that will hurt you: it's very sweet and nice."

"It is wine, or spirits of some sort or other, I know by the smell," said George; "and I will not drink it, thank you, ma'am."

"The boy's a fool!" said Mrs. Dolly; "but it's his mother's fault. She won't let him taste any thing stronger than water. But now your mother's not by, you know," said Mrs. Dolly, winking at the landlady; "now your mother's not by—"

"Yes, and nobody will tell of you," added the landlady; "so do what you like: drink it down, love."

"No!" cried George, pushing away the glass which Mrs. Dolly held to his lips. "No! no! no! I say. I will not do any thing now my mother's not by, that I would not do if she was here in this room."

"Well; hush, hush; and don't bawl so loud though," said Mrs. Dolly, who saw, what George did not see, a gentleman that was standing at the door of the parlour opposite to them, and who could hear every thing that was saying at the bar.

"I say," continued George, in a loud voice, "mother told me she could trust me to take care of myself; and so I will take care of myself; and I am not a fool, no more is mother, I know; for she told me the reasons why it is not good to drink spirituous—." Mrs. Dolly pushed him away, without giving him time to finish his sentence, bidding him go and see whether the gig was ready; for it was time to be going home.

As George was standing in the yard, looking at the mechanism of the one-horse chaise and observing how the horse was put to, somebody tapped him upon the shoulder, and looking up, he saw a gentleman with a very good-natured countenance, who smiled upon him, and asked him whether he was the little boy who had just been talking so loud in the bar?

"Yes, sir," says George. "You seem to be a good little boy," added he; "and I liked what I heard you say very much. So you will not do any thing when your mother is not by, that you would not do if she was here—was not that what you said?"

"Yes, sir; as well as I remember."

"And who is your mother?" continued the gentleman. "Where does she live?"

George told him his mother's name, and where she lived; and the gentleman said, "I will call at your mother's house as I go home, and tell her what I heard you say; and I will ask her to let you come to my house, where you will see a little boy of your own age, whom I should be very glad to have seen behave as well as you did just now."

Mr. Belton, for that was the name of the gentleman who took notice of George, was a rich carpet manufacturer. He had a country-house near Paddington; and the acquaintance which was thus begun became a source of great happiness to George. Mr. Belton lent him several entertaining books, and took him to see many curious things in London. Ellen was rejoiced to hear from him the praises of her son. All the pleasure of Ellen's life had, for some months past, depended upon this boy; for her husband was seldom at home, and the gloom that was spread over his countenance alarmed her, whenever she saw him. As for Mrs. Dolly, she was no companion for Ellen: her love of drinking had increased to such a degree that she could love nothing else; and when she was not half intoxicated, she was in such low spirits that she sat (either on the side of her bed, or in her arm-chair, wrapped in a shawl) sighing and crying, and see-sawing herself; and sometimes she complained to Maurice that Ellen did not care whether she was dead or alive; and at others that George had always something or other to do, and never liked to sit in her room and keep her company. Besides all this, she got into a hundred petty quarrels with the neighbours, who had a knack of remembering what she said when she was drunk, and appealing to her for satisfaction when she was sober. Mrs. Dolly regularly expected that Ellen should, as she called it, stand her friend in these altercations; to which Ellen could not always in justice consent. Ah! said Ellen to herself one night, as she was sitting up late waiting for her husband's return home, it is not the having five thousand pounds that makes people happy! When Maurice loved to come home after his day's work to our little cottage, and when our George was his delight, as he is mine, then I was light of heart; but now it is quite otherwise. However, there is no use in complaining, nor in sitting down to think upon melancholy things; and Ellen started up and went to work, to mend one of her husband's waistcoats.

Whilst she was at this employment, she listened continually for the return of Maurice. The clock struck twelve, and one, and no husband came! She heard no noise in the street when she opened her window, for every body but herself was in bed and asleep. At last she heard the sound of footsteps; but it was so dark that she could not see who the person was, who continued walking backwards and forwards, just underneath the window.

"Is it you, Maurice? Are you there, Maurice?" said Ellen. The noise of the footsteps ceased, and Ellen again said, "Is it you, Maurice? Are you there?"

"Yes," answered Maurice; "it is I. Why are you not abed and asleep, at this time of night?"

"I am waiting for you," replied Ellen. "You need not wait for me; I have the key of the house door in my pocket, and can let myself in whenever I choose it."

"And don't you choose it now?" said Ellen.

"No. Shut down the window."

Ellen shut the window, and went and sat down upon the side of her boy's bed. He was sleeping. Ellen, who could not sleep, took up her work again, and resolved to wait till her husband should come in. At last, the key turned in the house door, and presently she heard her husband's steps coming softly towards the room where she was sitting. He opened the door gently, as if he expected to find her asleep, and was afraid of awakening her. He started when he saw her; and slouching his hat over his face, threw himself into a chair without speaking a single word. Something terrible has happened to him, surely! thought Ellen; and her hand trembled so that she could scarcely hold her needle, when she tried to go on working.

"What are you doing there, Ellen?" said he, suddenly pushing back his hat.

"I'm only mending your waistcoat, love," said Ellen, in a faltering voice.

"I am a wretch! a fool! a miserable wretch!" exclaimed Maurice, starting up and striking his forehead with violence as he walked up and down the room.

"What can be the matter?" said Ellen. "It is worse to me to see you in this way, than to hear whatever misfortune has befallen you. Don't turn away from me, husband! Who in the world loves you so well as I do?"

"Oh, Ellen," said he, letting her take his hand, but still turning away, "you will hate me when you know what I have done."

"I cannot hate you, I believe," said Ellen.

"We have not sixpence left in the world!" continued Maurice, vehemently. "We must leave this house to-morrow; we must sell all we have; I must go to jail, Ellen! You must work all the rest of your days harder than ever you did; and so must that poor boy, who lies sleeping yonder. He little thinks that his father has made a beggar of him; and that, whilst his mother was the best of mothers to him, his father was ruining him, her, and himself, with a pack of rascals at the gaming-table. Ellen, I have lost every shilling of our money!"

"Is that all?" said Ellen. "That's bad; but I am glad that you have done nothing wicked. We can work hard, and be happy again. Only promise me now, dear husband, that you will never game any more."

Maurice threw himself upon his knees, and swore that he never, to the last hour of his life, would go to any gaming-table again, or play at any game of chance. Ellen then said all she could to soothe and console him; she persuaded him to take some rest, of which he was much in need, for his looks were haggard, and he seemed quite exhausted. He declared that he had not had a night's good sleep for many months, since he had got into these difficulties by gaming. His mind had been kept in a continual flurry, and he seemed as if he had been living in a fever. "The worst of it was, Ellen," said he, "I could not bear to see you or the boy when I had been losing; so I went on, gaming deeper and deeper, in hopes of winning back what I had lost; and I now and then won, and they coaxed me and told me I was getting a run of luck, and it would be a sin to turn my back on good fortune. This way I was 'ticed to go on playing, till, when I betted higher and higher, my luck left me; or, as I shrewdly suspect, the rascals did not play fair, and they won stake after stake, till they made me half mad, and I risked all I had left upon one throw, and lost it! And when I found I had lost all, and thought of coming home to you and our boy, I was ready to hang myself. Oh, Ellen, if you knew all I have felt! I would not live over again the last two years for this room full of gold!"

Such are the miserable feelings, and such the life, of a gamester!

Maurice slept for a few hours, or rather dozed, starting now and then, and talking of cards and dice, and sometimes grinding his teeth and clenching his hand, till he wakened himself by the violence with which he struck the side of the bed.

"I have had a terrible dream, wife," said he, when he opened his eyes, and saw Ellen sitting beside him on the bed. At first he did not recollect what had really happened; but as Ellen looked at him with sorrow and compassion in her countenance, he gradually remembered all the truth; and, hiding his head under the bed-clothes, he said he wished he could sleep again, if it could be without dreaming such dreadful things.

It was in vain that he tried to sleep; so he got up, resolving to try whether he could borrow twenty guineas from any of his friends, to pay the most pressing of his gaming companions. The first person he asked was Mrs. Dolly: she fell into an hysteric fit when she heard of his losses; and it was not till after she had swallowed a double dram of brandy that she was able to speak, and to tell him that she was the worst person in the world he could have applied to; for that she was in the greatest distress herself, and all her dependance in this world was upon him.

Maurice stood in silent astonishment. "Why, cousin," said he, "I thought, and always believed, that you had a power of money! You know, when you came to live with us, you told me so."

"No matter what I told you," said Mrs. Dolly. "Folks can't live upon air. Yesterday the landlady of the public-house at the bowling-green, whom I'm sure I looked upon as my friend,—but there's no knowing one's friends,—sent me in a bill as long as my arm; and the apothecary here has another against me worse again; and the man at the livery-stables, for one-horse chays, and jobs that I'm sure I forgot ever having, comes and charges me the Lord knows what! and then the grocer for tea and sugar, which I have been giving to folks from whom I have got no thanks. And then I have an account with the linen-draper of I don't know how much! hut he has over-charged me, I know, scandalously, for my last three shawls. And then I have never paid for my set of tea china; and half of the cups are broke, and the silver spoons, and I can't tell what besides."

In short, Mrs. Dolly, who had never kept any account of what she spent, had no idea how far she was getting into a tradesman's debt till his bill was brought home: and was in great astonishment to find, when all her bills were sent in, that she had spent four hundred and fifty pounds in her private expenses, drinking included, in the course of three years and eight months. She had now nothing left to live upon but one hundred pounds, so that she was more likely to be a burden to Maurice than any assistance. He, however, was determined to go to a friend, who had frequently offered to lend him any sum of money he might want, and who had often been his partner at the gaming-table.

In his absence, Ellen and George began to take a list of all the furniture in the house, that it might be ready for a sale, and Mrs. Dolly sat in her arm-chair, weeping and wailing.

"Oh! laud! laud! that I should live to see all this!" cried she. "Ah, lack-a-daisy! lack-a-daisy! lack-a-day! what will become of me? Oh, la! la! la! la!" Her lamentations were interrupted by a knock at the door. "Hark! a knock, a double knock at the door," cried Mrs. Dolly. "Who is it? Ah, lack-a-day, when people come to know what has happened, it will be long enough before we have any more visitors; long enough before we hear any more double knocks at the door. Oh, laud! laud! See who it is, George."

It was Mr. Belton, who was come to ask George to go with him and his little nephew to see some wild beasts at Exeter-'change: he was much surprised at the sorrowful faces of George and Ellen, whom he had always been used to see so cheerful, and inquired what misfortune had befallen them? Mrs. Dolly thought she could tell the story best, so she detailed the whole, with many piteous ejaculations; but the silent resignation of Ellen's countenance had much more effect upon Mr. Belton. "George," said he, "must stay to finish the inventory he is writing for his mother."

Mr. Belton was inquiring more particularly into the amount of Maurice's debts, and the names of the persons to whom he had lost his money at the gaming-table, when the unfortunate man himself came home. "No hope, Ellen!" cried he. "No hope from any of those rascals that I thought my friends. No hope!"

He stopped short, seeing a stranger in the room, for Mr. Belton was a stranger to him. "My husband can tell you the names of all the people," said Ellen, "who have been the ruin of us." Mr. Belton then wrote them down from Maurice's information; and learned from him that he had lost to these sharpers upwards of three thousand eight hundred pounds in the course of three years; that the last night he played, he had staked the goods in his shop, valued at 350l, and lost them; that afterwards he staked the furniture of his house, valued at 160l.; this also he lost; and so left the gaming-table without a farthing in the world.

"It is not my intention," said Mr. Belton, "to add to your present suffering, Mr. Robinson, by pointing out that it has arisen entirely from your own imprudence. Nor yet can I say that I feel much compassion for you; for I have always considered a gamester as a most selfish being, who should be suffered to feel the terrible consequences of his own avaricious folly, as a warning to others."

"Oh, sir! Oh, Mr. Belton!" cried Ellen, bursting now, for the first time, into tears, "do not speak so harshly to Maurice."

"To you I shall not speak harshly," said Mr. Belton, his voice and looks changing; "for I have the greatest compassion for such an excellent wife and mother. And I shall take care that neither you nor your son, whom you have taken such successful pains to educate, shall suffer by the folly and imprudence in which you had no share. As to the ready money which your husband has lost and paid to these sharpers, it is, I fear, irrecoverable; but the goods in your shop, and the furniture in your house, I will take care shall not be touched. I will go immediately to my attorney, and direct him to inquire into the truth of all I have been told, and to prosecute these villains for keeping a gaming-table, and playing at unlawful games. Finish that inventory which you are making out, George, and give it to me; I will have the furniture in your house, Ellen, valued by an appraiser, and will advance you money to the amount, on which you may continue to live in comfort and credit, trusting to your industry and integrity to repay me in small sums, as you find it convenient, out of the profits of your shop."

"Oh, sir!" cried Maurice, clasping his hands with a strong expression of joy, "thank you! thank you from the bottom of my soul! Save her from misery, save the boy, and let me suffer as I ought for my folly."

Mr. Belton, in spite of his contempt for gamesters, was touched by Maurice's repentance; but, keeping a steady countenance, replied in a firm tone, "Suffering for folly does nobody any good, unless it makes them wiser in future."



CHAPTER III.

Mrs. Dolly, who had been unaccountably awed to silence by Mr. Belton's manner of speaking and looking, broke forth the moment he had left the house. "Very genteel, indeed; though he might have taken more notice of me. See what, it is, George, to have the luck of meeting with good friends."

"See what it is to deserve good friends, George," said Ellen.

"You'll all remember, I hope," said Mrs. Dolly, raising her voice, "that it was I who was the first and foremost cause of all this, by taking George along with me to the tea-drinking at the bowling-green, where he first got acquainted with Mr. Belton."

"Mr. Belton would never have troubled his head about such a little boy as George," said Ellen, "if it had not been for—you know what I mean, Mrs. Dolly. All I wish to say is, that George's own good behaviour was the cause of our getting acquainted with this good friend."

"And I am sure you were the cause, mother," said George, "of what you call my good behaviour."

Mrs. Dolly, somewhat vexed at this turn, changed the conversation saying, "Well, 'tis no matter how we made such a good acquaintance; let us make the most of him, and drink his health, as becomes us, after dinner. And now, I suppose, all will go on as usual: none of our acquaintance in Paddington need know any thing of what has happened."

Ellen, who was very little solicitous about what Mrs. Dolly's acquaintance in Paddington might think, observed that, so far from going on as usual, now they were living on borrowed money, it was fit they should retrench all their expenses, and give up the drawing-room and parlour of the house to lodgers.

"So, then, we are to live like shabby wretches for the rest of our days!" cried Mrs. Dolly. "Better live like what we are, poor but industrious people," replied Ellen, "and then we shall never be forced to do any thing shabby."

"Ay, Ellen, you are, as you always are, in the right; and all I desire now, in this world, is to make up for the past, and to fall to work in some way or other; for idleness was what first led me to the gaming-table."

Mrs. Dolly opposed these good resolutions, and urged Maurice to send George to Mr. Belton, to beg him to lend them some more money. "Since he is in the humour to be generous, and since he has taken a fancy to us," said she, "why not take him at his word, and make punch whilst the water's hot?"

But all that Mrs. Dolly said was lost upon Ellen, who declared that she would never be so mean as to encroach upon such a generous friend; and Maurice protested that nothing that man, woman, or devil, could say, should persuade him to live in idleness another year. He sent George the next morning to Mr. Belton with a letter, requesting that he would procure employment for him, and stating what he thought himself fit for. Amongst other things, he mentioned that he could keep accounts. That he could write a good hand was evident, from his letter. Mr. Belton, at this time, wanted a clerk in his manufactory; and, upon Maurice's repeating his promise never more to frequent the gaming-table, Mr. Belton, after a trial, engaged him as his clerk, at a salary of 501. per annum.

Every thing now went on well for some months. Maurice, on whom his wife's kindness had made a deep impression, became thoroughly intent upon his business, and anxious to make her some amends for his past follies. His heart was now at ease: he came home, after his day's work at the counting-house, with an open, cheerful countenance; and Ellen was perfectly happy. They sold all the furniture that was too fine for their present way of life to the new lodgers, who took the drawing-room and front parlour of their house; and lived on the profits of their shop, which, being well attended, was never in want of customers.

One night, at about ten o'clock, as little George was sitting, reading the history of Sandford and Merton, in which he was much interested, he was roused by a loud knocking at the house door. He ran to open it: but how much was he shocked at the sight he beheld! It was Mrs. Dolly! her leg broken, and her skull fractured!

Ellen had her brought in, and laid upon a bed, and a surgeon was immediately sent for. When Maurice inquired how this terrible accident befel Mrs. Dolly, the account he received was, that she was riding home from the bowling-green public-house, much intoxicated; that she insisted upon stopping to get a glass of peppermint and brandy for her stomach; that, seeing she had drunk too much already, every thing possible was done to prevent her from taking any more; but she would not be advised: she said she knew best what agreed with her constitution; so she alighted and took the brandy and peppermint; and when she was to get upon her horse again, not being in her right senses, she insisted upon climbing up by a gate that was on the road-side, instead of going, as she was advised, to a bank that was a little further on. The gate was not steady, the horse being pushed moved, she fell, broke her leg, and fractured her skull.

She was a most shocking spectacle when she was brought home. At first she was in great agony; but she afterwards fell into a sort of stupor, and lay speechless.

The surgeon arrived: he set her leg; and during this operation, she came to her senses, but it was only the sensibility of pain. She was then trepanned; but all was to no purpose—she died that night; and of all the friends, as she called them, who used to partake in her tea-drinkings and merry-makings, not one said more when they heard of her death than "Ah, poor Mrs. Dolly! she was always fond of a comfortable glass: 'twas a pity it was the death of her at last."

Several tradesmen, to whom she died in debt, were very loud in their complaints; and the landlady at the bowling-green did not spare her memory. She went so far as to say, that it was a shame such a drunken quean should have a Christian burial. What little clothes Mrs. Dolly left at her death were given up to her creditors. She had owed Maurice ten guineas ever since the first month of their coming to Paddington; and when she was on her death-bed, during one of the intervals that she was in her senses, she beckoned to Maurice, and told him, in a voice scarcely intelligible, he would find in her left-hand pocket what she hoped would pay him the ten guineas he had lent to her. However, upon searching this pocket, no money was to be found, except sixpence in halfpence; nor was there any thing of value about her. They turned the pocket inside out, and shook it; they opened every paper that came out of it, but these were all old bills. Ellen at last examined a new shawl which had been thrust into this pocket, and which was all crumpled up: she observed that one of the corners was doubled down, and pinned; and upon taking out the yellow crooked pin, she discovered, under the corner of the shawl, a bit of paper, much soiled with snuff, and stained with liquor. "How it smells of brandy!" said Ellen, as she opened it. "What is it, Maurice?"

"It is not a bank note. It is a lottery ticket, I do believe!" cried Maurice. "Ay, that it is! She put into the lottery without letting us know any thing of the matter. Well, as she said, perhaps this may pay me my ten guineas, and overpay me, who knows? We were lucky with our last ticket; and why should not we be as lucky with this, or luckier, hey, Ellen? We might have ten thousand pounds or twenty thousand pounds this time, instead of five, why not, hey, Ellen?" But Maurice observing that Ellen looked grave, and was not much charmed with the lottery ticket, suddenly changed his tone, and said, "Now don't you, Ellen, go to think that my head will run on nothing but this here lottery ticket. It will make no difference on earth in me: I shall mind my business just as well as if there was no such thing, I promise you. If it come up a prize, well and good: and if it come up a blank, why well and good too. So do you keep the ticket, and I shall never think more about it, Ellen. Only, before you put it by, just let me look at the number. What makes you smile?"

"I smiled only because I think I know you better than you, know yourself. But, perhaps, that should not make me smile," said Ellen: and she gave a deep sigh.

"Now, wife, why will you sigh? I can't bear to hear you sigh," said Maurice, angrily. "I tell you I know myself, and have a right to know myself, I say, a great deal better than you do; and so none of your sighs, wife."

Ellen rejoiced to see that his pride worked upon him in this manner; and mildly told him she was very glad to find he thought so much about her sighs. "Why," said Maurice, "you are not one of those wives that are always taunting and scolding their husbands; and that's the reason, I take it, why a look or a word from you goes so far with me." He paused for a few moments, keeping his eyes fixed upon the lottery ticket; then, snatching it up, he continued: "This lottery ticket may tempt me to game again: for, as William Deane said, putting into the lottery is gaming, and the worst sort of gaming. So, Ellen, I'll show you that though I was a fool once, I'll never be a fool again. All your goodness was not thrown away upon me. I'll go and sell this lottery ticket immediately at the office, for whatever it is worth: and you'll give me a kiss when I come home again, I know, Ellen."

Maurice, pleased with his own resolution, went directly to the lottery office to sell his ticket. He was obliged to wait some time, for the place was crowded with persons who came to inquire after tickets which they had insured.

Many of these ignorant imprudent poor people had hazarded guinea after guinea, till they found themselves overwhelmed with debt; and their liberty, character, and existence, depending on the turning of the wheel. What anxious faces did Maurice behold! How many he heard, as they went out of the office, curse their folly for having put into the lottery!

He pressed forward to sell his ticket. How rejoiced he was when he had parted with this dangerous temptation, and when he had received seventeen guineas in hand, instead of anxious hopes! How different were his feelings at this instant from those of many that were near him! He stood to contemplate the scene. Here he saw a poor maid-servant, with scarcely clothes to cover her, who was stretching her thin neck across the counter, and asking the clerk, in a voice of agony, whether her ticket, number 45, was come up yet.

"Number 45?" answered the clerk, with the most careless air imaginable. "Yes" (turning over the leaves of his book): "Number 45, you say—Yes: it was drawn yesterday—a blank." The wretched woman clasped her hands, and burst into tears, exclaiming, "Then I'm undone!"

Nobody seemed to have time to attend to her. A man servant, in livery, pushed her away, saying, "You have your answer, and have no more business here, stopping the way. Pray, sir, is number 336, the ticket I've insured [Footnote: This was written before the act of parliament against insuring in lotteries.] so high, come up to-day?"

"Yes, sir—blank." At the word blank, the disappointed footman poured forth a volley of oaths, declaring that he should be in jail before night; to all which the lottery-office keeper only answered, "I can't help it, sir; I can't help it. It is not my fault. Nobody is forced to put into the lottery, sir. Nobody's obliged to insure, sir. 'Twas your own choice, sir. Don't blame me."

Meanwhile, a person behind the footman, repeating the words he had addressed to the poor woman, cried, "You have your answer, sir; don't stop the way."

Maurice was particularly struck with the agitated countenance of one man, who seemed as if the suspense of his mind had entirely bereaved him of all recollection. When he was pressed forward by the crowd, and found himself opposite to the clerk, he was asked twice, "What's your business, sir?" before he could speak; and then could only utter the words—number 7? "Still in the wheel," was the answer. "Our messenger is not yet returned from Guildhall, with news of what has been drawn this last hour. If you will call again at three, we can answer you." The man seemed to feel this as a reprieve; but as he was retiring, there came one with a slip of paper in his hand. This was the messenger from Guildhall, who handed the paper to the clerk. He read aloud, "Number 7. Were you not inquiring for 7, sir?"

"Yes," said the pale trembling man.

"Number 7 is just come up, sir,—a blank."

At the fatal word blank, the man fell flat upon his face in a swoon. Those near him lifted him out into the street, for air.

"Here, sir; you are going without your change, after waiting for it so long," cried the clerk to Maurice; who, touched with compassion for the man who had just fallen, was following those who were carrying him out. When he got into the street, Maurice saw the poor creature sitting on a stone, supported by a hackney-coachman, who held some vinegar to his nose, at the same time asking him if he did not want a coach?

"A coach! Oh, no," said the man, as he opened his eyes. "I have not a farthing of money in the world." The hackney-coachman swore that was a sad case, and ran across the street to offer his services where they could he paid for: "A coach, if you want one, sir. Heavy rain coming on," said he, looking at the silver which he saw through the half-closed fingers of Maurice's hand.

"Yes, I want a coach," said Maurice: and bade the coachman draw up to the stone, where the poor man who had swooned was sitting. Maurice was really a good-natured fellow; and he had peculiar pity for the anguish this man seemed to feel, because he recollected what he had suffered himself, when he had been ruined at the gaming-table.

"You are not able to walk: here is a coach; I will go your way and set you down, sir," said Maurice.

The unfortunate man accepted this offer. As they went along he sighed bitterly, and once said, with great vehemence, "Curse these lotteries! Curse these lotteries!" Maurice now rejoiced, more than ever, at having conquered his propensity to gaming, and at having sold his ticket.

When they came opposite to a hosier's shop, in Oxford-street, the stranger thanked him, and desired to be set down. "This is my home," said he; "or this was my home, I ought to say," pointing to his shop as he let down the coach-glass. "A sad warning example I am! But I am troubling you, sir, with what no way concerns you. I thank you, sir, for your civility," added he, turning away from Maurice, to hide the tears which stood in his eyes: "good day to you."

He then prepared to get out of the coach; but whilst the coachman was letting down the step, a gentleman came out of the hosier's shop to the door, and cried, "Mr. Fulham, I am glad you are come at last. I have been waiting for you this half-hour, and was just going away." Maurice pulled aside the flap of the hosier's coat, as he was getting out, that he might peep at the gentleman who spoke; the voice was so like William Deane's, that he was quite astonished.—"It is—it is William Deane," cried Maurice, jumping out of the coach and shaking hands with his friend.

William Deane, though now higher in the world than Robinson, was heartily glad to see him again, and to renew their old intimacy. "Mr. Fulham," said he, turning to the hosier, "excuse me to-day; I'll come and settle accounts with you to-morrow."

On their way to Paddington, Maurice related to his friend all that had passed since they parted; how his good luck in the lottery tempted him to try his fortune at the gaming-table; how he was cheated by sharpers, and reduced to the brink of utter ruin; how kind Ellen was towards him in this distress; how he was relieved by Mr. Belton, who was induced to assist him from regard to Ellen and little George; how Mrs. Dolly drank herself into ill health, which would soon have killed her if she had not, in a drunken fit, shortened the business by fracturing her skull; and, lastly, how she left him a lottery ticket, which he had just sold, lest it should be the cause of fresh imprudence. "You see," added Maurice, "I do not forget all you said to me about lotteries.—Better take good advice late than never. But now, tell me your history."

"No," replied William Deane; "that I shall keep till we are all at dinner; Ellen and you, I and my friend George, who, I hope, has not forgotten me." He was soon convinced that George had not forgotten him, by the joy he showed at seeing him again.

At dinner, William Deane informed them that he was become a rich man, by having made an improvement in the machinery of the cotton-mills, which, after a great deal of perseverance, he had brought to succeed in practice. "When I say that I am a rich man," continued he, "I mean richer than ever I expected to be. I have a share in the cotton-mill, and am worth about two thousand pounds."

"Ay," said Maurice, "you have trusted to your own sense and industry, and not to gaming and lotteries."

"I am heartily rejoiced you have nothing more to do with them," said William Deane: "but all this time you forget that I am your debtor. You lent me five guineas at a season when I had nothing. The books I bought with your money helped me to knowledge, without which I should never have got forward. Now I have a scheme for my little friend George, that will, I hope, turn out to your liking. You say he is an intelligent, honest, industrious lad; and that he understands book-keeping, and writes a good hand: I am sure he is much obliged to you for giving him a good education."

"To his mother, there, he's obliged for it all," said Maurice.

"Without it," continued William Deane, "I might wish him very well; but I could do little or nothing for him. But, as I was going to tell you, that unfortunate man whom you brought to his own door in the hackney-coach to-day, Maurice, is a hosier, who had as good a business as most in the city; but he has ruined himself entirely by gaming. He is considerably in our debt for cotton, and I am to settle accounts with him to-morrow, when he is to give up all his concerns into my hands, in behalf of his brother, who has commissioned me to manage the business, and dissolve the partnership; as he cannot hazard himself, even out of friendship for a brother, with one that has taken to gaming. Now my friend, the elder Fulham, is a steady man, and is in want of a good lad for an apprentice. With your leave, I will speak to him, and get him to take George; and as to the fee, I will take care and settle that for you. I am glad I have found you all out at last. No thanks, pray. Recollect, I am only paying my old debts."

As William Deane desired to have no thanks, we shall omit the recital of those which he received, both in words and looks. We have only to inform our readers, further, that George was bound apprentice to the hosier; that he behaved as well as might be expected from his excellent education; that Maurice continued, in Mr. Belton's service, to conduct himself so as to secure the confidence and esteem of his master; and that he grew fonder and fonder of home, and of Ellen, who enjoyed the delightful reflection that she had effected the happiness of her husband and her son.

May equal happiness attend every such good wife and mother! And may every man, who, like Maurice, is tempted to be a gamester, reflect that a good character, and domestic happiness, which cannot be won in any lottery, are worth more than the five thousand, or even the ten thousand pounds prize, let any Mrs. Dolly in Christendom say what she will to the contrary.

Sept. 1799. ROSANNA.

CHAPTER I.

There are two sorts of content: one is connected with exertion, the other with habits of indolence; the first is a virtue, the second a vice. Examples of both may be found in abundance in Ireland. There you may sometimes see a man in sound health submitting day after day to evils which a few hours' labour would remedy; and you are provoked to hear him say, "It will do well enough for me. Didn't it do for my father before me? I can make a shift with things for my time: any how, I'm content."

This kind of content is indeed the bane of industry. But instances of a different sort may be found, in various of the Irish peasantry. Amongst them we may behold men struggling with adversity with all the strongest powers of mind and body; and supporting irremediable evils with a degree of cheerful fortitude which must excite at once our pity and admiration.

In a pleasant village in the province of Leinster there lives a family of the name of Gray. Whether or not they are any way related to Old Robin Gray, history does not determine; but it is very possible that they are, because they came, it is said, originally from the north of Ireland, and one of the sons is actually called Robin. Leaving this point, however, in the obscurity which involves the early history of the most ancient and illustrious families, we proceed to less disputable and perhaps more useful facts. It is well known, that is, by all his neighbours, that farmer Gray began life with no very encouraging prospects: he was the youngest of a large family, and the portion of his father's property that fell to his share was but just sufficient to maintain his wife and three children. At his father's death, he had but 100l. in ready money, and he was obliged to go into a poor mud-walled cabin, facing the door of which there was a green pool of stagnant water; and before the window, of one pane, a dunghill that, reaching to the thatch of the roof, shut out the light, and filled the house with the most noisome smell. The ground sloped towards the house door; so that in rainy weather, when the pond was full, the kitchen was overflowed; and at all times the floor was so damp and soft, that the print of the nails of brogues was left in it wherever the wearer set down his foot. To be sure these nail-marks could scarcely be seen, except just near the door or where the light of the fire immediately shone; because, elsewhere, the smoke was so thick, that the pig might have been within a foot of you without your seeing him. The former inhabitants of this mansion had, it seems, been content without a chimney: and, indeed, almost without a roof; the couples and purlins of the roof having once given way, had never been repaired, and swagged down by the weight of the thatch, so that the ends threatened the wigs of the unwary.

The prospect without doors was scarcely more encouraging to our hero than the scene within: the farm consisted of about forty acres; and the fences of the grazing-land were so bad, that the neighbours' cattle took possession of it frequently by day, and always by night. The tillage-ground had been so ill managed by his predecessor, that the land was what is called quite out of heart.

If farmer Gray had also been out of heart, he and his family might at this hour have been beggars. His situation was thought desperate by many of his neighbours; and a few days after his father's decease, many came to condole with him. Amongst the rest was "easy Simon;" or, as some called him, "soft Simon," on account of his unresisting disposition, and contented, or, as we should rather name it, reckless temper. He was a sort of a half or a half quarter gentleman, had a small patrimony of a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds a year, a place in the excise worth fifty more, and a mill, which might have been worth another hundred annually, had it not been suffered to stand still for many a year.

"Wheugh! Wheugh! What a bustle we are in! and what a world of trouble is here!" cried Simon, when he came to Gray's house, and found him on the ladder taking off the decayed thatch; whilst one of his sons, a lad of about fourteen, was hard at work filling a cart from the dunghill, which blockaded the window. His youngest son, a boy of twelve, with a face and neck red with heat, was making a drain to carry off the water from the green pond; and Rose, the sister, a girl of ten years old, was collecting the ducks, which her mother was going to carry to her landlord's to sell.

"Wheugh! Wheugh! Wheugh! Why what a world of bustle and trouble is here! Troth, Jemmy Gray, you're in a bad way, sure enough! Poor cratur! Poor cratur!"

"No man," replied Gray, "deserves to be called poor, that has his health, and the use of his limbs. Besides," continued he, "have not I a good wife and good children: and, with those blessings, has not a man sufficient reason to be content?"

"Ay, to be sure: that's the only way to get through this world," said Simon; "whatever comes, just to take it easy, and be content. Content and a warm chimney corner is all in all, according to my notion."

"Yes, Simon," said Gray, laughing; "but your kind of content would never do for me. Content, that sits down in the chimney corner, and does nothing but smoke his pipe, will soon have the house about his ears; and then what will become of Content?"

"Time enough to think of that when it comes," said Simon: "fretting never propped a house yet; and if it did, I would rather see it fall than fret."

"But could not you prop the house," said Gray, "without fretting?"

"Is it by putting my shoulders to it?" said Simon. "My shoulders have never been used to hard work, and don't like it any way. As long as I can eat, drink, and sleep, and have a coat to my back, what matter for the rest? Let the world go as it will, I'm content. Shoo! Shoo! The button is off the neck of this great coat of mine, and how will I keep it on? A pin sure will do as well as a button, and better. Mrs. Gray, or Miss Rose, I'll thank you kindly for a pin."

He stuck the pin in the place of the button, to fasten the great coat round his throat, and walked off: it pricked his chin about a dozen times before the day was over; but he forgot the next day, and the next, and the next, to have the button sewed on. He was content to make shift, as he called it, with the pin. This is precisely the species of content which leads to beggary.

Not such the temper of our friend Gray. Not an inconvenience that he could remedy, by industry or ingenuity, was he content to endure; but necessary evils he bore with unshaken patience and fortitude. His house was soon new roofed and new thatched; the dunghill was removed, and spread over that part of his land which most wanted manure; the putrescent water of the standing pool was drained off, and fertilized a meadow; and the kitchen was never again overflowed in rainy weather, because the labour of half a day made a narrow trench which carried off the water. The prints of the shoe-nails were no longer visible in the floor; for the two boys trod dry mill seeds into the clay, and beat the floor well, till they rendered it quite hard and even. The rooms also were cleared of smoke, for Gray built a chimney; and the kitchen window, which had formerly been stuffed up, when the wind blew too hard, with an old or new hat, was glazed. There was now light in the house. Light! the great friend of cleanliness and order. The pig could now no longer walk in and out, unseen and unreproved; he ceased to be an inmate of the kitchen.

The kitchen was indeed so altered from what it had been during the reign of the last master, that he did not know it again. It was not in the least like a pig-sty. The walls were whitewashed; and shelves were put up, on which clean wooden and pewter utensils were ranged. There were no heaps of forlorn rubbish in the corners of the room; nor even an old basket, or a blanket, or a cloak, or a great coat thrown down, just for a minute, out of the girl's way. No: Rose was a girl who always put every thing in its place; and she found it almost as easy to hang a coat, or a cloak, upon a peg, as to throw it down on the floor. She thought it as convenient to put the basket and turf-kish out of her way, when her brothers had brought in the potatoes and fuel, as to let them lie in the middle of the kitchen, to be stumbled over by herself and her mother, or to be gnawed and clawed by a cat and dog. These may seem trifles unworthy the notice of the historian; but trifles such as these contribute much to the comfort of a poor family, and therefore deserve a place in their simple annals.

It was a matter of surprise and censure to some of farmer Gray's neighbours, that he began by laying out it could not be less than ten pounds (a great sum for him!) on his house and garden at the first setting out; when, to be sure, the land would have paid him better if the money had been laid out there. And why could not he make a shift to live on in the old cabin, for a while, as others had done before his time well enough? A poor man should be contented with a poor house. Where was the use, said they, of laying out the good ready penny in a way that would bring nothing in?

Farmer Gray calculated that he could not have laid out his money to better advantage; for by these ten pounds he had probably saved his wife, his children, and himself, from a putrid fever, or from the rheumatism. The former inhabitants of this house, who had been content to live with the dunghill close to the window, and the green pool overflowing the kitchen, and the sharp wind blowing in through the broken panes, had in the course of a few years lost their health. The father of the family had been crippled by the rheumatism, two children died of the fever, and the mother had such an inflammation in her eyes that she could not see to work, spin, or do anything. Now the whole that was lost by the family sickness, the doctor's bill, and the burying of the two children, all together, came in three years to nearly three times ten pounds. Therefore Mr. Gray was, if we only consider money, a very prudent man. What could he or any body do without health? Money is not the first thing to be thought of in this world; for there are many things that money cannot buy, and health is one of them. "Health can make money, but money cannot make health," said our wise farmer. "And then, for the value of a few shillings, say pounds, we have light to see what we are doing, and shelves, and a press to hold our clothes in. Why now, this will be all so much saved to us, by and by; for the clothes will last the longer, and the things about us will not go to wreck; and when I and the boys can come home after our day's work to a house like this, we may be content."

Having thus ensured, as far as it was in his power, health, cleanliness, and comfort in his house, our hero and his sons turned their attention to the farm. They set about to repair all the fences; for the boys, though they were young, were able to help their father in the farm: they were willing to work, and happy to work with him. John, the eldest lad, could set potatoes, and Robin was able to hold the plough: so that Gray did not hire any servant-boy to help him; nor did Mrs. Gray hire a maid. "Rose and I," said she, "can manage very well to look after the two cows, and milk them, and make the butter, and get something too by our spinning. We must do without servants, and may be happy and content to serve ourselves."

"Times will grow better; that is, we shall make them better every year: we must have the roughest first," said Gray.

The first year, to be sure, it was rough enough; and, do what they could, they could not do more than make the rent of the farm, which rent amounted to forty pounds. The landlord was a Mr. Hopkins, agent to a gentleman who resided in England. Mr. Hopkins insisted upon having the rent paid up to the day, and so it was. Gray contented himself by thinking that this was perhaps for the best. "When the rent is once paid," said he, "it cannot be called for again, and I am in no man's power; that's a great comfort. To be sure, if the half year's rent was left in my hands for a few months, it might have been of service: but it is better not to be under an obligation to such a man as Mr. Hopkins, who would make us pay for it in some shape or other, when we least expected it."

Mr. Hopkins was what is called in Ireland a middle-man; one that takes land from great proprietors, to set it again at an advanced, and often an exorbitant, price, to the poor. Gray had his land at a fair rent, because it was not from Mr. Hopkins his father had taken the lease, but from the gentleman to whom this man was agent. Mr, Hopkins designed to buy the land which Gray farmed, and he therefore wished to make it appear as unprofitable as possible to his landlord, who, living in England, knew but little of his own estate. "If these Grays don't pay the rent," said he to his driver, "pound their cattle, and sell at the end of eight days. If they break and run away, I shall have the land clear, and may make a compliment of it to tenants and friends of my own, after it comes into my hands." He was rather disappointed, when the rent was paid to the day. "But," said he, "it won't be so next year; the man is laying out his money on the ground, on draining and fencing, and that won't pay suddenly. We'll leave the rent in his hands for a year or so, and bring down an ejectment upon him, if he once gets into our power, as he surely will. Then, all that he has done to the house will be so much in my way. What a fool he was to lay out his money so!"

It happened, however, that the money which Gray had laid out in making his house comfortable and neat was of the greatest advantage to him, and at a time and in a way which he least expected. His cottage was within sight of the high road, that led to a town from which it was about a mile distant. A regiment of English arrived, to be quartered in the town; and the wives of some of the soldiers came a few hours after their husbands. One of these women, a sergeant's wife, was taken suddenly in labour, before they reached the town; and the soldier who conducted the baggage-cart in which she was, drew up to the first amongst a row of miserable cabins that were by the road-side, to ask the people if they would give her lodging: but the sick woman was shocked at the sight of the smoke and dirt of this cabin, and begged to be carried on to the neat whitewashed cottage that she saw at a little distance. This was Gray's house.

His wife received the stranger with the greatest kindness and hospitality; she was able to offer her a neat bed, and a room that was perfectly dry and clean. The sergeant's wife was brought to bed soon after her arrival, and remained with Mrs. Gray till she recovered her strength. She was grateful for the kindness that was shown to her by Mrs. Gray; and so was her husband, the sergeant. He came one evening to the cottage, and in his blunt English fashion said, "Mr. Gray, you know I, or my wife, which is the same thing, have cause to be obliged to you, or your wife, which comes also to the same thing: now one good turn deserves another. Our colonel has ordered me, I being quarter-master, to sell off by auction some of the cast horses belonging to the regiment: now I have bought in the best for a trifle, and have brought him here, with me, to beg you'll accept of him, by way some sort of a return for the civilities you and your wife, that being, as I said, the same thing, showed me and mine."

Gray replied he was obliged to him for this offer of the horse, but that he could not think of accepting it; that he was very glad his wife had been able to show any kindness or hospitality to a stranger; but that, as they did not keep a public-house, they could not take any thing in the way of payment.

The sergeant was more and more pleased by farmer Gray's generosity. "Well," said he, "I heard, before I came to Ireland, that the Irish were the most hospitable people on the face of the earth; and so I find it come true, and I shall always say so, wherever I'm quartered hereafter. And now do pray answer me, is there any the least thing I can ever do to oblige you? for, if the truth must be told of me, I don't like to lie. under an obligation, any more than another, where I can help it."

"To show you that I do not want to lay you under one," said Gray, "I'll tell you how you can do as much for me, and ten times as much, as I have done for you; and this without hurting yourself or any of your employers a penny."

"Say how, and it shall be done."

"By letting me have the dung of the barracks, which will make my land and me rich, without making you poorer; for I'll give you the fair price, whatever it is. I don't ask you to wrong your employers of a farthing."

The sergeant promised this should be done, and rejoiced that he had found some means of serving his friend. Gray covered ten acres with the manure brought from the barracks; and the next year these acres were in excellent heart. This was sufficient for the grazing of ten cows: he had three, and he bought seven more; and with what remained of his hundred pounds, after paying for the cows, he built a shed and a cow-house. His wife, and daughter Rose, who was now about fourteen, were excellent managers of the dairy. They made, by butter and butter-milk, about four pounds each cow within the year. The butter they salted and took to market, at the neighbouring town; the butter-milk they sold to the country people, who, according to the custom of the neighbourhood, came to the house for it. Besides this, they reared five calves, which, at a year old, they sold for fifteen guineas and a half. The dairy did not, however, employ all the time of this industrious mother and daughter; they had time for spinning, and by this cleared six guineas. They also made some little matter by poultry; but that was only during the first year: afterwards Mr. Hopkins sent notice that they must pay all the duty-fowl, and duty-geese, and turkeys, [Footnote: See a very curious anecdote in the Statistical Survey of the Queen's County.] charged in the lease, or compound with him by paying two guineas a year. This gentleman had many methods of squeezing money out of poor tenants; and he was not inclined to spare the Grays, whose farm he now more than ever wished to possess, because its value had been considerably increased, by the judicious industry of the farmer and his sons.

Young as they were, both farmer Gray's sons had a share in these improvements. The eldest had drained a small field, which used to be called the rushy field, from its having been quite covered with rushes. Now there was not a rush to be found upon it, and his father gave him the profits of the field, and said that it should be called by his name. Robin, the youngest son, had, by his father's advice, tried a little experiment, which many of his neighbours ridiculed at first, and admired at last. The spring, which used to supply the duck-pond, that often flooded the house, was at the head of a meadow, that sloped with a fall sufficient to let the water run off. Robin flooded the meadow at the proper season of the year, and it produced afterwards a crop such as never had been seen there before. His father called this meadow Robin's meadow, and gave him the value of the hay that was made upon it.

"Now, my dear boys," said this good father, "you have made a few guineas for yourselves; and here are a few more for you, all that I can spare: let us see what you can do with this money. I shall take a pride in seeing you get forward by your own industry and cleverness; I don't want you to slave for me all your best days; but shall always be ready, as a father should be, to give you a helping hand."

The sons had scarcely a word in answer to this, for their hearts were full; but that night, when they were by themselves, one said to the other, "Brother, did you see Jack Reel's letter to his father? They say he has sent home ten guineas to him. Is there any truth in it, think you?"

"Yes; I saw the letter, and a kinder never was written from son to father. [Footnote: This is fact.] The ten guineas I saw paid into the old man's hand; and, at that same minute, I wished it was I that was doing the same by my own father."

"That was just what I was thinking of, when I asked you if you saw the letter. Why, Jack Reel had nothing, when he went abroad with the army to Egypt, last year. Well, I never had a liking myself to follow the drum: but it's almost enough to tempt one to it. If I thought I could send home ten guineas to my father, I would 'list to-morrow."

"That would not be well done of you, Robin," said John; "for my father would rather have you, a great deal, than the ten guineas, I am sure: to say nothing of my poor mother, and Rose, and myself, who would be sorry enough to hear of your being knocked on the head, as is the fate, sooner or later, of them that follow the army. I would rather be any of the trades that hurt nobody, and do good to a many along with myself, as father said t'other day. Then, what a man makes so, he makes with a safe conscience, and he can enjoy it."

"You are right, John, and I was wrong to talk of 'listing," said Robin; "but it was only Jack Reel's letter, and the ten guineas sent to his father, that put it into my head. I may make as much for my father by staying at home, and minding my business. So now, good night to you; I'll go to sleep, and we can talk more about it all to-morrow."

The next morning, as these two youths were setting potatoes for the family, and considering to what they should turn their hands when the potatoes were all set, they were interrupted by a little gossoon, who came running up as hard as he could, crying, "Murder! murder! Simon O'Dougherty wants you. For the love of God, cross the bog in all haste, to help pull out his: horse, that has tumbled into the old tan-pit, there beyond, in the night!"

The two brothers immediately followed the boy, carrying with them a rope and a halter, as they guessed that soft Simon would not have either. They found him wringing his hands beside the tan-pit, in which his horse lay smothering. A little ragged boy was tugging at the horse's head, with a short bit of hay-rope. "Oh, murder! murder! What will I do for a halter? Sure the horse will be lost, for want of a halter; and where in the wide world will I look for one?" cried Simon, without stirring one inch from the spot. "Oh, the blessing of Heaven be with you, lads," continued he, turning at the sight of the Grays; "you've brought us a halter. But see! it's just over with the poor beast. All the world put together will not get him alive out of that. I must put up with the loss, and be content. He cost me fifteen good guineas, and he could leap better than any horse in the county. Oh, what a pity on him! what a pity! But, take it easy; that's all we have for it! Poor cratur! Poor cratur!"

Without listening to Simon's lamentations, the active lads, by the help of Simon and the two boys, pulled the horse out of the pit. The poor animal was nearly exhausted by struggling: but, after some time, he stretched himself, and, by degrees, recovered sufficiently to stand. One of his legs, however, was so much hurt that he could scarcely walk; and Simon said he would surely go lame for life.

"Who now would ever have thought of his straying into such an ugly place of all others?" continued he. "I know, for my share, the spot is so overgrown with grass and rubbish, of one kind or other, and it's so long since any of the tanning business was going on here, in my uncle O'Haggarty's time, that I quite forgot there were such things as tan-pits, or any manner of pits, in my possession; and I wish these had been far enough off before my own little famous Sir Hyacinth O'Brien had strayed into them, laming himself for life, like a blockhead. For the case was this: I came home late last night, not as sober as a judge, and, finding no one up but the girl, I gave her the horse to put into the stable, and she forgot the door after her, which wants a lock; and there being but a scanty feed of oats, owing to the boy's negligence, and no halter to secure the beast, my poor Sir Hyacinth strayed out here, as ill luck would have it, into the tan-pit. Bad luck to my uncle O'Haggarty, that had the tan-yard here at all! He might have lived as became him, without dirtying his hands with the tanning of dirty hides."

"I was just going," said John Gray, "to comfort you, Simon, for the laming of your horse, by observing that, if you had your tan-yard in order again, you could soon make up the price of another horse."

"Ohoo! I would not be bothered with anything of the kind. There's the mill of Rosanna there, beyond, was the plague of my life, till it stopped; and I was glad to have fairly done with it. Them that come after me may set it a-going again, and welcome. I have enough just to serve my time, and am content any way."

"But, if you could get a fair rent for the tan-yard, would you let it?" said John.

"To that I should make no objection in life; provided I had no trouble with it," replied Simon.

"And if you could get somebody to keep the mill of Rosanna going, without giving you any trouble, you would not object to that, would you?" said Robin.

"Not I, to be sure," replied Simon, laughing. "Whatever God sends, be it more or less, I am content. But I would not have you think me a fool, for all I talk so easy about the matter; I know very well what I might have got for the mill some years ago, when first it stopped, if I would have let it to the man that proposed for it; but though he was as substantial a tenant as you could see, yet he affronted me once, at the last election, by calling a freeholder of mine over the coals; and so I was proud of an opportunity to show him I did not forget. So I refused to let him the mill on any terms; and I made him a speech for his pride to digest at the same time. 'Mr. Hopkins,' said I, 'the lands of Rosanna have been in my family these two hundred years and upwards; and though, now-a-days, many men think that every thing is to be done for money, and though you, Mr. Hopkins, have made as much money as most men could in the same time,—all which I don't envy you,—yet I must make bold to tell you, that the lands of Rosanna, or any part or parcel thereof, is what you'll never have whilst I'm alive, Mr. Hopkins, for love or money.' The spirit of the O'Doughertys was up within me; and though all the world calls me easy Simon, I have my own share of proper spirit. These mushroom money-makers, that start up from the very dirt under one's feet, I can't for my part swallow them. Now I should be happy to give you a lease of the mill of Rosanna, after refusing Hopkins; for you and your father before you, lads, have been always very civil to me. My tan-pits and all I am ready to talk to you about, and thank you for pulling my horse out for me this morning. Will you walk up and look at the mill? I would attend you myself, but must go to the farrier about Sir Hyacinth's leg, instead of standing talking here any longer. Good morning to you kindly. The girl will give you the key of the mill, and show you everything, the same as myself."

Simon gathered his great coat about him, and walked away to the farrier, whilst the two brothers rejoiced that they should see the mill without hearing him talk the whole time. Simon, having nothing to do all day long but to talk, was an indefatigable gossip. When the lands of Rosanna were in question, or when his pride was touched, he was terribly fluent.

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CHAPTER II.

Upon examining the mill, which was a common oat-mill, John Gray found that the upper mill-stone was lodged upon the lower; and that this was all which prevented the mill from going. No other part of it was damaged or out of repair. As to the tan-yard, it was in great disorder; but it was very conveniently situated; was abundantly supplied with water on one side, and had an oak copse at the back, so that tan could readily be procured. It is true that the bark of these oak trees, which had been planted by his careful uncle O'Haggarty, had been much damaged since Simon came into possession; for he had, with his customary negligence, suffered cattle to get amongst them. He had also, to supply himself with ready money, occasionally cut down a great deal of the best timber before it arrived at its full growth; and at this time the Grays found every tree of tolerable size marked for destruction with the initials of Simon O'Dougherty's name.

Before they said anything more about the mill or the tan-yard to Simon, these prudent brothers consulted their father: he advised them to begin cautiously, by offering to manage the mill and the tan-yard, during the ensuing season, for Simon, for a certain share in the profits; and then, if they should find the business likely to succeed, they might take a lease of the whole. Simon willingly made this agreement; and there was no danger in dealing with him, because, though careless and indolent, he was honest, and would keep his engagements. It was settled that John and Robin should have the power, at the end of the year, either to hold or give up all concern in the mill and tan-yard; and, in the mean time, they were to manage the business for Simon, and to have such a share in the profits as would pay them reasonably for their time and labour.

They succeeded beyond their expectations in the management of the mill and tan-yard during their year of probation; and Simon, at the end of that time, was extremely glad to give them a long lease of the premises, upon their paying him down, by way of fine, the sum of 150l. This sum their father, who had good credit, and who could give excellent security upon his farm, which was now in a flourishing condition, raised for them; and they determined to repay him the money by regular yearly portions out of their profits.

Success did not render these young men presumptuous or negligent: they went on steadily with business, were contented to live frugally and work hard for some years. Many of the sons of neighbouring tradesmen and farmers, who were able perhaps to buy a horse or two, or three good coats in a year, and who set up for gentlemen, and spent their days in hunting, shooting, or cock-fighting, thought that the Grays were poor-spirited fellows for sticking so close to business. They prophesied that, even when these brothers should have made a fortune, they would not have the liberality to spend or enjoy it; but this prediction was not verified. The Grays had not been brought up to place their happiness merely in the scraping together pounds, shillings, and pence; they valued money for money's worth, not for money's sake; and, amongst the pleasures it could purchase, they thought that of contributing to the happiness of their parents and friends the greatest. When they had paid their father the hundred and fifty pounds he had advanced, their next object was to build a neat cottage for him, near the wood and mill of Rosanna, on a beautiful spot, upon which they had once heard him say that he should like to have a house.

We mentioned that Mr. Hopkins, the agent, had a view to this farm; and that he was desirous of getting rid of the Grays: but this he found no easy matter to accomplish, because the rent was always punctually paid. There was no pretence for driving, even for the duty-fowls; Mrs. Gray always had them ready at the proper time. Mr. Hopkins was farther provoked by seeing the rich improvements which our farmer made every year on his land: his envy, which could be moved by the meanest objects of gain, was continually excited by his neighbour's successful industry. To-day he envied him his green meadows, and to-morrow the crocks of butter, packed on the car for Dublin. Farmer Gray's ten cows, which regularly passed by Mr. Hopkins's window morning and evening, were a sight that often spoiled his breakfast and supper: but that which grieved this envious man the most was the barrack manure; he would stand at his window, and, with a heavy heart, count the car loads that went by to Gray's farm.

Once he made an attempt to ruin Gray's friend, the sergeant, by accusing him secretly of being bribed to sell the barrack manure to Gray for less than he had been offered for it by others: but the officer to whom Mr. Hopkins made this complaint was fortunately a man who did not like secret informations: he publicly inquired into the truth of the matter, and the sergeant's honesty and Mr. Hopkins's meanness were clearly proved and contrasted. The consequence of this malicious interference was beneficial to Gray; for the officer told the story to the colonel of the regiment which was next quartered in the town, and he to the officer who succeeded him; so that year after year Mr. Hopkins applied in vain for the barrack manure. Farmer Gray had always the preference, and the hatred of Mr. Hopkins knew no bounds; that is, no bounds but the letter of the law, of which he was ever mindful, because lawsuits are expensive.

At length, however, he devised a legal mode of annoying his enemy. Some land belonging to Mr. Hopkins lay between Gray's farm and the only bog in the neighbourhood: now he would not permit Mr. Gray, or any body belonging to him, to draw turf upon his bog-road; and he absolutely forbade his own wretched tenants to sell turf to the object of his envy. By these means, he flattered himself he should literally starve the enemy out of house and home.

Things were in this situation when John and Robin Gray determined to build a house for their father at Rosanna. They made no secret to him of their intentions; for they did not want to surprise but to please him, and to do every thing in the manner that would be most convenient to him and their mother. Their sister, Rose, was in all their counsels; and it had been for the last three years one of her chief delights to go, after her day's work was done, to the mill at Rosanna, to see how her brothers were going on. How happy are those families where there is no envy or jealousy; but in which each individual takes an interest in the prosperity of the whole! Farmer Gray was heartily pleased with the gratitude and generosity of his boys, as he still continued to call them; though, by-the-bye, John was now three-and-twenty, and his brother only two years younger.

"My dear boys," said he, "nothing could be more agreeable to me and your mother than to have a snug cottage near you both, on the very spot which you say I pitched upon two years ago. This cabin that we now live in, after all I have tried to do to prop it up, and notwithstanding all Rose does to keep it neat and clean withinside, is but a crazy sort of a place. We are able now to have a better house, and I shall be glad to be out of the reach of Mr. Hopkins's persecution. Therefore, let us set about and build the new house. You shall contribute your share, my boys; but only a share: mind, I say only a share. And I hope next year to contribute my share towards building a house for each of you: it is time you should think of marrying, and settling: it is no bad thing to have a house ready for a bride. We shall have quite a little colony of our own at Rosanna. Who knows but I may live to see my grand-children, ay, and my great-grand-children, settled there all round me, industrious and contented?"

Good-will is almost as expeditious and effectual as Aladdin's lamp:—the new cottage for farmer Gray was built at Rosanna, and he took possession of it the ensuing spring. They next made a garden, and furnished it with all sorts of useful vegetables and some pretty flowers. Rose had great pleasure in taking care of this garden. Her brothers also laid out a small green lawn before the door; and planted the boundaries with white-thorn, crab-trees, lilacs, and laburnums. The lawn sloped down to the water-side; and the mill and copse behind it were seen from the parlour windows. A prettier cottage, indeed so pretty a one, was never before seen in this county.

But what was better far than the pretty cottage, or the neat garden, or the green lawn, or the white-thorn, the crab-trees, the lilacs, and the laburnums, was the content that smiled amongst them.

Many who have hundreds and thousands are miserable, because they still desire more; or rather because they know not what they would have. For instance, Mr. Hopkins, the rich Mr. Hopkins, who had scraped together in about fifteen years above twenty thousand, some said thirty thousand pounds, had never been happy for a single day, either whilst he was making this fortune or when he had made it; for he was of an avaricious, discontented temper. The more he had, the more he desired. He could not bear the prosperity of his neighbours; and if his envy made him industrious, yet it at the same time rendered him miserable. Though he was what the world calls a remarkably fortunate man, yet the feelings of his own mind prevented him from enjoying his success. He had no wife, no children, to share his wealth. He would not marry, because a wife is expensive; and children are worse than taxes. His whole soul was absorbed in the love of gain. He denied himself not only the comforts but the common necessaries of life. He was alone in the world. He was conscious that no human being loved him. He read his history in the eyes of all his neighbours.

It was known that he had risen upon the ruin of others; and the higher he had risen, the more conspicuous became the faults of his character. Whenever any man grew negligent of his affairs, or by misfortune was reduced to distress, Hopkins was at hand to take advantage of his necessities. His first approaches were always made under the semblance of friendship; but his victims soon repented their imprudent confidence when they felt themselves in his power. Unrestrained by a sense of honour or the feelings of humanity, he felt no scruple in pursuing his interest to the very verge of what the law would call fraud. Even his own relations complained that he duped them without scruple; and none but strangers to his character, or persons compelled by necessity, would have any dealings with this man. Of what advantage to him, or to any one else, were the thousands he had accumulated?

It may be said that such beings are necessary in society; that their industry is productive; and that, therefore, they ought to be preferred to the idle, unproductive members of the community: but wealth and happiness are not the same things. Perhaps, at some future period, enlightened politicians may think the happiness of nations more important than their wealth. In this point of view, they would consider all the members of society, who are productive of happiness, as neither useless nor despicable; and, on the contrary, they would contemn and discourage those who merely accumulate money, without enjoying or dispensing happiness. But some centuries must probably elapse before such a philosophic race of politicians can arise. In the mean time, let us go on with our story.



CHAPTER III.

Mr. Hopkins was enraged when he found that his expected victim escaped his snares. He saw the pretty cottage rise, and the mill of Rosanna work, in despite of his malevolence. He long brooded over his malice in silence. As he stood one day on the top of a high mount on his own estate, from which he had a view of the surrounding country, his eyes fixed upon the little paradise in the possession of his enemies. He always called those his enemies of whom he was the enemy: this is no uncommon mistake, in the language of the passions.

"The Rosanna mill shall be stopped before this day twelvemonth, or my name is not Hopkins," said he to himself. "I have sworn vengeance against those Grays; but I will humble them to the dust, before I have done with them. I shall never sleep in peace till I have driven those people from the country."

It was, however, no easy matter to drive from the country such inoffensive inhabitants. The first thing Mr. Hopkins resolved upon was to purchase from Simon O'Dougherty the field adjoining to that in which the mill stood. The brook flowed through this field, and Mr. Hopkins saw, with malicious satisfaction, that he could at a small expense turn the course of the stream, and cut off the water from the mill.

Poor Simon by this time had reduced himself to a situation in which his pride was compelled to yield to pecuniary considerations. Within the last three years, his circumstances had been materially changed. Whilst he was a bachelor, his income had been sufficient to maintain him in idleness. Soft Simon, however, at last, took it into his head to marry; or rather a cunning damsel, who had been his mistress for some years, took it into her head to make him marry. She was skilled in the arts both of wheedling and scolding: to resist these united powers was too much to be expected from a man of Simon's easy temper.

He argued thus with himself:—"She has cost me more as she is than if she had been my wife twice over; for she has no interest in looking after any thing belonging to me, but only just living on from day to day, and making the most for herself and her children. And the children, too, all in the same way, snatching what they could make sure of for themselves. Now, if I make her my lawful wife, as she desires, the property will be hers, as well as mine; and it will be her interest to look after all. She is a stirring, notable woman, and will save me a world of trouble, and make the best of every thing for her children's sake; and they, being then all acknowledged by me, will make my interest their own, as she says; and, besides, this is the only way left me to have peace."

To avoid the cares and plagues of matrimony, and that worst of plagues a wife's tongue, Simon first was induced to keep a mistress, and now to silence his mistress, he made her his wife. She assured him, that, till she was his lawful lady, she never should have peace or quietness; nor could she, in conscience, suffer him to have a moment's rest.

Simon married her, to use his own phrase, out of hand: hut the marriage was only the beginning of new troubles. The bride had hordes and clans of relations, who came pouring in from all quarters to pay their respects to Mrs. O'Dougherty. Her good easy man could not shut his doors against any one: the O'Doughertys were above a hundred years, ay, two hundred years ago, famous for hospitality; and it was incumbent upon Simon O'Dougherty to keep up the honour of the family. His four children were now to be maintained in idleness; for they, like their father, had an insurmountable aversion to business. The public opinion of Simon suddenly changed. Those who were any way related to the O'Doughertys, and who dreaded that he and his children should apply to them for pecuniary assistance, began the cry against him of, "What a shame it is [Footnote: Essay on Charity Schools.] that the man does not do something for himself and his family! How can those expect to be helped who won't help themselves? He is contented, indeed! Yes, and he must soon be contented to sell the lands that have been in the family so long; and then, by and by, he must be content, if he does not bestir himself, to be carried to jail. It is a sin for any one to be content to eat the bread of idleness!"

These and similar reproaches were uttered often, in our idle hero's presence. They would perhaps have excited him to some sort of exertion, if his friend, Sir Hyacinth O'Brien, had not, in consequence of certain electioneering services, and in consideration of his being one of the best sportsmen in the county, and of Simon's having named a horse after him, procured for him a place of about fifty pounds a year in the revenue. Upon the profits of this place Simon contrived to live, in a shambling sort of way.

How long he might have shuffled on is a problem which must now for ever remain unsolved; for his indolence was not permitted to take its natural course; his ruin was accelerated by the secret operation of an active and malignant power. Mr. Hopkins, who had determined to get that field which joined to Gray's mill, and who well knew that the pride of the O'Doughertys would resist the idea of selling to him any part or parcel of the lands of Rosanna, devised a scheme to reduce Simon to immediate and inextricable distress. Simon was, as it might have been foreseen, negligent in discharging the duties of his office, which was that of a supervisor.

He either did not know, or connived at the practices, of sundry illegal distillers in his neighbourhood. Malicious tongues did not scruple to say that he took money, upon some occasions, from the delinquents; but this he positively denied. Possibly his wife and sons knew more of this matter than he did. They sold certain scraps of paper, called protections, to several petty distillers, whose safest protection would have been Simon's indolence. One of the scraps of paper, to which there was O'Dougherty's signature, fell into the hands of Mr. Hopkins.

That nothing might be omitted to ensure his disgrace, Hopkins sent a person, on whom he could depend, to give Simon notice that there was an illegal still at such a house, naming the house for which the protection was granted. Soft Simon received the information with his customary carelessness, said it was too late to think of going to seize the still that evening, and declared he would have it seized the next day: but the next day he put it off, and the day afterwards he forgot it, and the day after that, he received a letter from the collector of excise, summoning him to answer to an information which had been laid against him for misconduct. In this emergency, he resolved to have recourse to his friend Sir Hyacinth O'Brien, who, he thought, could make interest to screen him from justice. Sir Hyacinth gave him a letter to the collector, who happened to be in the country. Away he went with the letter: he was met on the road by a friend, who advised him to ride as hard after the collector as he could, to overtake him before he should reach Counsellor Quin's, where he was engaged to dine. Counsellor Quin was candidate for the county in opposition to Sir Hyacinth O'Brien; and it was well understood that whomsoever the one favoured the other hated. It behoved Simon, therefore, to overtake the collector before he should be within the enemy's gates. Simon whipped and spurred, and puffed and fretted, but all in vain, for he was mounted upon the horse which, as the reader may remember, fell into the tan-pit. The collector reached Counsellor Quin's long before Simon arrived; and, when he presented Sir Hyacinth's letter, it was received in a manner that showed it came too late. Simon lost his place and his fifty pounds a year: but what he found most trying to his temper were the reproaches of his wife, which were loud, bitter, and unceasing. He knew, from experience, that nothing could silence her but letting her "have all the plea;" so he suffered her to rail till she was quite out of breath, and he very nearly asleep, and then said, "What you have been observing is all very just, no doubt; but since a thing past can't be recalled, and those that are upon the ground, as our proverb says, can go no lower, that's a great comfort; so we may be content."

"Content, in troth! Is it content to live upon potatoes and salt? I, that am your lawful wife! And you, that are an O'Dougherty too, to let your lady be demeaned and looked down upon, as she will be now, even by them that are sprung up from nothing since yesterday. There's Mrs. Gray, over yonder at Rosanna, living on your own land: look at her and look at me! and see what a difference there is!"

"Some difference there surely is," said Simon.

"Some difference there surely is," repeated Mrs. O'Dougherty, raising her voice to the shrillest note of objurgation; for she was provoked by a sigh that escaped Simon, as he pronounced his reply, or rather his acceding sentence. Nothing, in some cases, provokes a female so much as agreeing with her.

"And if there is some difference betwixt me and Mrs. Gray, should be glad to know whose fault that is?"

"So should I, Mrs. O'Dougherty."

"Then I'll tell you, instantly, whose fault it is, Mr. O'Dougherty: the fault is your own, Mr. O'Dougherty. No, the fault is mine, Mr. O'Dougherty, for marrying you, or consorting with you at all. If I had been matched to an active, industrious man, like Mr. Gray, I might have been as well in the world and better than Mrs. Gray; for I should become a fortune better than she, or any of her seed, breed, or generation; and it's a scandal in the face of the world, and all the world says so, it's a scandal to see them Grays flourishing and settling a colony, there at Rosanna, at our expense!"

"Not at our expense, my dear, for you know we made nothing of either tan-yard or mill; and now they pay us 30l. a year, and that punctually too. What should we do without it, now we have lost the place in the revenue? I am sure, I think we were very lucky to get such tenants as the Grays."

"In truth, I think no such thing; for if you had been blessed with the sense of a midge, you might have done all they have done yourself: and then what a different way your lawful wife and family would have been in! I am sure I wish it had pleased the saints above to have married me, when they were about it, to such a man as farmer Gray or his sons."

"As for the sons," said Simon, "they are a little out of the way in point of age, but to farmer Gray I see no objection in life: and if he sees none, and will change wives, I'm sure, Ally, I shall be content."

The sort of composure and dry humour with which Simon made this last speech overcame the small remains of Mrs. O'Dougherty's patience: she burst into a passion of tears; and from this hour, it being now past eleven o'clock at night, from this hour till six in the morning she never ceased weeping, wailing, and upbraiding.

Simon rose from his sleepless bed, saying, "The saints above, as you call them, must take care of you now, Ally, any how; for I'm fairly tired out: so I must go a-hunting or a-shooting with my friend, Sir Hyacinth O'Brien, to recruit my spirits."

The unfortunate Simon found, to his mortification, that his horse was so lame he could scarcely walk. Whilst he was considering where he could borrow a horse, just for the day's hunt, Mr. Hopkins rode into his yard, mounted upon a fine hunter. Though naturally supercilious, this gentleman could stoop to conquer: he was well aware of Simon's dislike to him, but he also knew that Simon was in distress for money. Even the strongest passions of those who involve themselves in pecuniary difficulties must yield to the exigencies of the moment. Easy Simon's indolence had now reduced him to a situation in which his pride was obliged to bend to his interest. Mr. Hopkins had once been repulsed with haughtiness by the representative of the O'Dougherty family, when he offered to purchase some of the family estate; but his proposal was now better timed, and was made with all the address of which he was master. He began by begging Simon to give him his opinion of the horse on which he was mounted, as he knew Mr. O'Dougherty was a particularly good judge of a hunter; and he would not buy it, from Counsellor Quin's groom, without having a skilful friend's advice. Then he asked whether it was true that Simon and the collector had quarrelled, exclaimed against the malice and officiousness of the informer, whoever he might be, and finished by observing that, if the loss of his place put Simon to any inconvenience, there was a ready way of supplying himself with money, by the sale of any of the lands of Rosanna. The immediate want of a horse, and the comparison he made, at this moment, between the lame animal on which he was leaning and the fine hunter upon which Hopkins was mounted, had more effect upon Simon than all the rest. Before they parted, Mr. Hopkins concluded a bargain for the field on which he had set his heart: he obtained it for less than its value by three years' purchase. The hunter was part of the valuable consideration he gave to Simon.