over

that Mr Gammon must have had in view the securing Yatton for himself! The firm of Messrs Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, are completely whelmed with the consequences of their conduct! I understand they have terribly taken in the Jews-to the amount of at least seventy or eighty thousand pounds of hard cash; and one of them, it seems, on discovering that he has no security, very nearly succeeded in hanging himself the other day!"

"What's this I see in the paper about a Mr Tag-rag?" enquired Lord de la Zouch:-and Mr Aubrey told him the miserable condition to which Tag rag had been reduced by the al. leged chicanery of the firm of Quirk, Gammon, and Snap.

"Mr Runnington seems to be managing matters with great vigour and skill," said his lordship.

"Admirably! admirably! I never in my life saw or heard of such complete success as attends every step he takes against the enemy; he is hourly pressing them nearer and nearer to the verge of the precipice, and cutting off all retreat. They would fight, but they have no funds! Look at the administration suit!" Mr Aubrey then

Mr

proceeded to mention two very important circumstances which had transpired since his former visit to town. First, an offer was understood to have come direct from Mr Gammon, to abandon the defence to the ejectment, on condition of his receiving, on behalf of Mr Titmouse, the sum of two thousand pounds; but Mr Runnington had peremptorily refused to listen to any proposal of the kind, and the actions were, at that moment, in full progress, with every prospect of there being no real defence even attempted. The next piece of intelligence was, that Messrs Screw and Son, the solicitors to the Vulture Insurance Company, had called on Messrs Runnington, on learning that they were the solicitors of the party to whom letters of administration had been granted, and intimated that the directors, “taking all the circumstances of the case into their consideration," had determined to offer no further opposition to the payment of the policy on the life of the late Lady Stratton. Serew talked very finely about the high principle and good feeling which ever actuated that distinguished company; but he did not tell Mr Runnington what was the real cause of their abandoning their opposition, which was this before their "commission" to examine their sole witness, Dr Podagra, had reached China, they accidentally received authentic intelligence of his death, having been killed for vaccinating the infant of one of the Chinese! Under these circumstances, Mr Runnington agreed to the terms proposed on the part of the Company; viz. that the action be discontinued forthwith, each party pay their own costs, and the whole amount of the policy, minus the £2000 which had been advanced to Lady Stratton, be paid to Mr Aubrey within a month from the day of discontinuing the action. Though Kate very vehe mently protested against it, she was at length persuaded to allow her brother to act according to the manifest intentions of the venerable deceased; and he, in his turn, received a very grati fying assurance that she would have given him, under the special circumstances of the case, no anxiety respecting his bond for £2000 given to Lady Stratton, even had the grant of administration to the debtor interposed no technical objection! Thus was

Kate no longer a dowerless maiden; having at her absolute disposal a sum of eighteen thousand pounds, in addition to which, in the event of their being restored to the possession of Yatton, she would be in the receipt of the income left her as a charge upon the estate by her father; viz. five hundred a-year.

While the cheering sunshine of returning prosperity was thus beaming with daily increasing warmth and brightness upon the Aubreys,

"And all the clouds that lower'd upon their house,"

were, indeed,

The

"In the deep bosom of the ocean buried". the sun of that proud and weak old man, the Earl of Dreddlington, was indeed going down in darkness. proceedings which have been laid at length before the reader, arising out of the extraordinary termination of the enquiry set on foot by the Ecclesiastical Court, and quickly ending in the adoption of measures for the immediate recovery of Yatton, had attracted far too much of public attention to admit of their being concealed from the Earl, comparatively secluded from the world as he was. But the frightful confirmation of his assertion concerning what had occurred between himself and Mr Gammon, respecting Titmouse, appeared to make no commensurate impression upon a mind no longer capable of appreciating it. He had been seized by a partial paralysis shortly after the last interview between himself, Mr Gammon, and the Duke of Tantallan, with which the present part of this history opens; and it was evident that his reason was failing rapidly. And it was perhaps a merciful dispensation, for it appeared that the cup of his misery and mortification was not even yet full. That other monstrous fabric of absurdity and fraud, built upon public credulity-the Gunpowder and Fresh Water Companysuddenly dropped to pieces, principally on account of its chief architect, Mr Gammon, being unable to continue that attention and skill by which it had been kept so long in existence. It suddenly exploded, involving every body concerned in it in ruin. infatuated, and now dismayed, shareholders, and the numerous and designing creditors, came crowding

The

round the more prominent of the parties concerned, clamorous and despe rate. Meetings were called from time to time-producing, however, no other results than extending the view of liability incurred. The shareholders had fondly imagined that they could repose with confidence on the provision inserted in the prospectus, and in the deed of settlement, viz. that no one was to be liable beyond the amount of their shares actually subscribed for: alas! how dreadful the delusion, and how quickly was it dissipated! The houses of Lord Dreddlington, the Duke of Tantallan, and others, were besieged by importunate creditors; and at length a general meeting was called, at which resolutions were passed, strongly reflecting upon the Earl of Dreddlington and Mr Gammon; and directing the solicitor concerned for the rest of the shareholders to file a bill against the Earl and Mr Gammon, for the purpose of compelling them to pay all the debts incurred by the Company. More than this, it was threatened that unless satisfactory proposals were promptly received from, or on behalf of the Earl of Dreddlington, he would be proceeded againstas a TRADER liable to the bankrupt laws, and a docket forthwith struck against him!-Of this crowning indignity impending over his head, the poor old peer was fortunately not conscious, being at the moment resident at Poppleton Hall, in a state not far removed from complete imbecility. The Duke of Tantallan was similarly threatened; and alarmed and enraged almost to a pitch of madness, resolved to take measures for completely exposing and punishing the individual to whose fraudulent plausibility and sophistries he justly attributed the calamity which had befallen him and the Earl of Dreddlington.

"Out of this net le danger, I'll yet pluck the flower safety" said Mr Gammon to himself, as he sat inside one of the coaches going to Brighton, towards the close of the month of November, being on the morning after the explosion of the Gunpowder and Fresh Water Company. Inextricably involved as he appeared, yet he did not despair of retrieving himself, and defeating the vindictive measures taken against him. His chambers were besieged by applicants for admission Titmouse among them,

whose senseless pertinacity, overheard by Gammon as he sat within, while his laundress was being daily worried by Titmouse, several times inflamed him almost up to the point of darting out and spliting open the head of the intruder; old Mr Quirk also sent daily letters, in a piteous strain, and called besides daily, begging to be recon ciled to Gammon; but he sternly turned a deaf ear to all such applications. In order to escape this intolerable persecution, at all events for a while, and, in change of scene and air, unpropitious as was the weather, seek to recruit his health and spirits, he had determined upon spending a week at Brighton; telling no one, however, except his old and faithful laundress, his destination; and instructing her to say that he was gone, she believed, into Suffolk, but would certainly return to town within a week. His pale and harassed features showed how much he required the repose and relief he sought for, but which he sought for in vain. He felt not a whit the better after a two days' stay, though the weather had suddenly cleared up, and the air become brisk and bracing. Whithersoever he went, he carried about him a thick gloom which no sun could penetrate, no breezes dissipate. He could find rest nowhere, neither at home or abroad, neither alone nor in company, neither sleeping nor waking. His brow was clouded by a stern melancholy, his heart was bursting with a sense of defeat and shame, exposure, mortifica tion; and with all his firmness of nerve, he could not contemplate the future but with a sickening apprehension. In fact, he was in a state of intense nervous irritability and excitement from morning to night. On the evening of the third day after his arrival, the London paper, forwarded to him as usual from the neighbouring library, contained a paragraph which excited him not a little; and which was to the effect that a named solicitor of eminence had been the day before appointed by the Lord Chancellor to a specified office; being no other, in truth, than that which Gammon knew his lordship had all along destined for him, one which he could have filled to admiration, which would have given him permanent status in society; and the salary attached to it was, moreover, £1800

a-year! Gammon laid down the paper, and a sense of desolation came into his soul. After a while his eye lit on another part of the paper-gracious Heavens!-there were three or four lines which instantly roused him almost into madness. It was an advertisement, stating that he had “ ABSCONDED," and offering a reward of £100 to any one who would give information by which he might be discovered and apprehended!"

"Absconded!" he exclaimed aloud, starting up, and his eye flaming with fury-"accursed miscreants!-I will quickly undeceive them." Instantly unlocking his paper case, he sat down and wrote off a letter to the editor of the newspaper, giving his full name and address; most indignantly denying his having attempted or dreamed of absconding; stating that he should be in London within forty-eight hours; and requiring an ample apology for the gross insult and libel which had been perpetrated, to be inserted in the next number of his paper. Then he wrote off to the solicitor, Mr Winnington, who had conducted all the town proceedings in the cause of Wigley v. Gammon, alluding in terms of indignation and astonishment to the offensive advertisement, and assuring him that he should, within fortyeight hours be found, as usual, at his chambers, and prepared to make an immediate and satisfactory arrangement in respect of the damages and costs which were now due from him. In a similar strain he wrote to Mr Runnington, (who had maintained throughout, personally, a cautious courtesy towards Mr Gammon)begging him to postpone signing judgment in the action of Doe on the demise of Aubrey v. Roe, till the last day of term, as he had a new and final proposal to make, which might have the effect of saving great delay and expense. He added, that he had also a proposition to offer upon the subject of Lord de la Zouch's bond and Mr Aubrey's promissory notes, and begged the favour of a line in answer, addressed to him at his cham bers in Thavies' Inn, and which he might find on his arrival. To a similar effect, he also wrote to the solicitor who was working the docket which had been struck against Mr Tag-rag; and also to the solicitor who was employed on behalf of the

shareholders in the Gunpowder and Fresh Water Company :-in all of them reprobating in terms of the keenest indignation the unwarrantable and libellous use of his name which had been made, and making appointments for the individuals addressed to call at his chambers on the day after his arrival in town. Having thus done all in his power to counteract the injurious effects which were calculated to arise from so very premature and cruel a measure as that which had been taken, in offering a reward for his apprehension as an absconded felon, he folded up, sealed, and directed the letters, and took them himself to the post-office, in time for that night's post; and very greatly excited he was, as may be easily believed. He did not touch the dinner which he found laid for him on his return, but sat on the sofa, absorbed in thought, for nearly an hour: when he suddenly rung the bell, ordered his clothes to be instantly got ready for travelling-his bill made out-and then he went and secured a place in that night's mail, which was starting for town at halfpast eight o'clock. At that hour he entered the mail, and as the only passenger-a circumstance which gave him an ample opportunity for reflection, and of which doubtless he availed himself at all events, certain it is, that he closed not his eyes in sleep during the whole of the journey. Greatly to the surprise of his laundress, he made his appearance at his chambers between six and seven o'clock in the morning, rousing her from bed. He had thus, it will be observed, reached town contemporaneously with his own letters; and as all the appointments which he had made, were for the day after that of his arrival, he had secured a full day's freedom from interruption of any ⚫ sort, and resolved to avail himself of it, by keeping within doors the whole of the time, his laundress denying him, as usual, to any one who might call. He asked her if she had seen or heard of the atrocious advertisement which had appeared in yesterday's paper? She replied that she had; and added, that no doubt to that circumstance were to be attributed the calls made yesterday from morning to night -an announcement which seemed to heighten the excitement under which Mr Gammon was evidently labouring.

As soon as his lamp had been lit, he opened his paper-case, and wrote the following letter:

"Thavies' Inn, "Wednesday Morning, "Dear Hartley,As I have not "missed an annual meeting of our "little club for these ten years, I shall "be found at my place to-night at "nine to a moment: that is, by the

66

way, if I shall be admitted, after "the execrable advertisement con"cerning me which appeared in yes"terday's papers, and the writer of "which I will give cause, if I can "discover him, to repent to the latest "day he lives. I came up this morn"ing suddenly, to refute, by my pre"sence, the villanous falsehoods about "my absconding. Entre nous, I am "somewhat puzzled, just now, cer"tainly-but never fear! I shall find "a way out of the wood yet. Expect " me at nine, to a minute,

"Your's as ever,

"O. GAMMON.
“ Harry Hartley, Esq.
"Kensington Square.

This he sealed and directed; and requesting his laundress to put it into the office in time for the first post, without fail-he got into bed, and slept for a couple of hours: when he awoke somewhat refreshed, made his toilet as usual, and partook of a slight breakfast.

"You did not suppose I had absconded, Mrs Brown, eh?" he enquired, with a melancholy smile, as she removed his breakfast things.

"No, sir; indeed I did not believe a word of it-you've always been a kind and just master to me, sir—and” --she raised her apron to her eyes, and sobbed.

"And I hope long to continue so, Mrs Brown. By the way, were not your wages due a day or two ago?"

"Oh yes, sir-but it does not signify, sir, the least; but on second thoughts-it does, sir-for my little niece is to be taken into the countryshe's dying, I fear—and her mother's been out of work, for "

"Here's a ten-pound note, Mrs Brown," replied Mr Gammon, taking one from his pocket-book-"pay yourself your wages; write me a receipt as usual, and keep the rest on account of the next quarter's wages, if it will assist you just now.' She took the bank-note with many