Who, till the genial time of day When evening warns the jovial group And feasts upon the best? Who washes down his haunch and fish And never tastes a vulgar dish? Day's pleasant course at length is run, Obscure; heeds not the night; the dun That champagne-punch is costly drink, Mere lack of coin's no shame or sin; Who spares his own or other's "tin" Is scouted of mankind. Oh! Mr. Green, if you are one Must needs this maxim clench, Look on the workhouse wretch-and, on The Swell that's in the Bench! Thus sang the lordling a "flattering unction to his soul" somewhat in the disposition that told him to whisper hope's flattery in his visions of transmuting his stiff, that only so perfect a tactician in discount would ever have indulged in. "Extremes meet," saith the proverb your borrower and lender have only less chance of meeting than two straight lines; but our Leg and lordling did foregather. "Your noble friend in 'quod' has a bill for a thousand he wants done, I think," replied Leatherlungs to the Colonel's oration; "do you know what he'll take for it?" "I should'nt imagine a buyer would find him hard to deal with," returned De Montmorenci, with a spasmodic action, the consequence of swallowing a laugh which had nearly exploded in the speaker's face; but circumstances had taught the soldier the value of discretion. "I should'nt wonder if you get it cheap if I were to say a gentleman for whom I had a great respect desired to become the purchaser." The villain had gone too far: all power of face and restraint here forsook him, and, bursting into a roar, he threw himself back in his chair, and fairly bellowed with delight. He had not all the fun to himself, for I chimed in with a right good will; and even the Leg went the length of a smile, or rather a grin. I never knew any legs in my life that possessed the faculty of laughing outright; as how should they, indeed, seeing it is a property peculiar to the human race? As soon as he came to himself, Colonel Howard de Montmorenci scrutinized the frontispiece of his host, and reading therein something which bespoke what was within, he thus addressed him in a tone of rather more earnest than jest: "Leathers, you're a fellow few people understand; and I don't pretend to be a conjuror. If you have taken the notion of joining the rag trade to your other speculations, why should'nt you? Some simpletons might wonder, perhaps, that in commencing business you should begin by dealing with the most accomplished rogue under the moon; but I think it a stroke of profound policy and judgment. You have heard it reported to be an undertaking in which there is a risk of burning the fingers, so you thrust your head at once into the fire to feel if it's as hot as rumour makes it. Well, you've selected just the chapman to teach you experience; and he has just the commodity on hand to give you a true idea of the value of such merchandize. A truce to these theories: the question is not what you want with this bill, but what he wants for it; is it not so? Am I to be the agent between you, and on what terms." "Spoken to the purpose," cried the member of the ring; "slap to the point, that's what I like in these cases. I know all about drawer and accepter in this affair, and am not frightened by either of them, at the price. Tell my lord any lie you like, I'll tell you the fact. Í am disposed to give a rouleau for the bill; and anything under that sum you can get it for, you are welcome to keep as commission." "A liberal offer," cried the gallant negotiator; "a spirited bid for a slip of paper never worth a farthing, and now worth nothing in consequence of being scribbled upon. Oh! I shall make something Honour bright-you mean fifty pounds handsome out of this deal. down for the flimsy?" "A half-hundred on the nail. I suppose it's all right-endorsed by the acceptor, and all that?" "No doubt of it, I should say; for he's been a maker of such missives a long time. Should it not be complete, I'll take care to have it made perfect. Jack Sparling has a natural taste for writing his name across stamped paper. I'll engage to get you his autographs to tenshilling bill-stamps-as many as you please, at twelve and sixpence a piece..... Here business ended, and after some miscellaneous small talk, I left the Leg and his guest sitting down to a quiet game of Lansquinette, about two, A.M. I was a little puzzled at first as to the use Leatherlungs meant to make of the hopeful security he was about to purchase; but by degrees the woof was unravelled. It was his purpose to achieve something more than mere wealth. He had seen-because the example was furnished by the life and death of one he had selected for his model-he had seen, in the fate of the arch-gamester Crockford, that money is no resource against the ills that ambitious flesh inherits. Leatherlungs desired to be remembered in his generation—and after it. He had proposed to himself some vague type of advancement which time should shape into form and likelihood. He was well aware that, broken in fame and in fortune as Sparling was, he was related to one of those stirring spirits of the time, born to accomplish great ends, not only for themselves, but all within the immediate sphere of their care. Sparling was the son of the Earl of Mobile; a nobleman who had held some of the highest appointments in the state, and one whose talents-not to say genius-still gave him consideable political power, notwithstanding he was out of office. Lord Mobile's public life, however, had abounded in incongruities-mixed here and there with noble passages indeed, but still such as to mark him as a man of no master-mind. He had this peculiarityrarely, if ever, found the companion of true greatness-he was an affected politician; his aim was more to make a point, than to establish a principle; he was an actor in the forum and in the senate. Self-love it might have been-or some more worthy influence-which had blinded him as to his son's true character. He knew him a spendthrift, a runagate, a gambler, a debauché; but he hoped—perhaps he believed that, as Wordsworth says, "he still retained, 'Mid such debasement, what he had received Many and mighty as the mistakes had been into which the wily politician had fallen, he never made a greater error than this. Jack Sparling was what will be seen presently. Let not his deeds, however, be brought in too contemptible array against him. He had fallen upon unhappy times, when, in order to be fashionable, it is necessary to be dull and supercilious; when it is mauvais ton to visit a friend, if he happen to sojourn for the nonce in Bond-street. Furthermore, his kinsfolk and acquaintance all seemed to be affected in relation to him and his eccentricities (as they called remembering to forget to keep all his honest obligations), with what Macaulay designates the Lues Boswelliana, or the distemper of admiration. No wonder, then, that his father thought better of him than he deservedten thousand times better, or he would have ordered the porter to shut the door in his face the first time he attempted to enter his house. In some part, this was understood by Leatherlungs, who drew from it the conclusion that it was strong confirmation of the Deer's weakness. The Leg by no means considered himself a match for the lord—but he set about his design as one resolved to pit perseverance against the odds of sagacity, interest, and pride, which would all be arrayed against him. He had long been so placed as to see on how many occasions genius, condition, opportunity, and wealth are made to give way to industrious mediocrity. He believed he should turn things to his own account; and therefore he set to work with the greatest portion of his task already accomplished. Leatherlungs had in him the one great element of success-he kept his own counsel. Herein he was a better politician than Chatham, who was wont to say of himself when in the House, "I must sit still, for once I am up, all that is in my mind comes out." WILD SPORTS IN THE FAR WEST. BY PERCY B. ST. JOHN, ESQ. II. -A NIGHT ADVENTURE. During my travels, perils, and peregrinations in the far west, it was my lot to meet with more sport, both human and animal, than commonly falls to the lot of mortal. I have not only chased the wild deer, hunted buffaloes, scored down ducks, geese, and swans, at an alarming rate, treed 'coons and such small fry, but I have, innocently enough, been brought into contact with panthers-or painters, as they are graphically called-on more than one occasion, and conducted myself, I hope, with that coolness and decision which peculiarly belongs to the Anglo-Saxon race. I have never-like my friend Sir Cornwallis Harris, the greatest and most agreeable of African hunters, in whose graphic pages, * and still more graphic pictorial embellishments, we learn of sport unknown to any save the traveller in arid wilds-I have never, I say, like him, hunted the lion, tiger, elephant, or giraffe; but I can fully sympathize with the burning eagerness of that indefatigable sportsman, comprehend the pride and gratification which must arise from victory over such potent enemies, and may, perhaps, one day feel, myself, the same sensations. The reader will judge of my liability to be worked up to a very considerable pitch of excitement, from the following narrative of an adventure which occurred to me on the borders of Dickinson's creek, my favourite and ordinary hunting ground. I have already introduced to the British public, and made extensively known through the medium of " Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, a curious and peculiar Irish family of the name of Rock. I could wish to particularize their character and qualities once more at full length, but that, having done so once, I abhor repeating myself. Suffice, they were squatters, who, without owning a rood of land, or a pig, fowl, or any cattle, were never without a supply of pork, poultry, and beef, to say nothing of game. The secret was, that all was game to them; and hence a very unenviable reputation, which I only learned the extent of by degrees. I, however, was a stranger in the land, and, at the time I now write of, only knew that the father and mother were hospitable and grateful; that the son was an indefatigable and invaluable hunter, who knew every resort of game; and the two girls, as some of my readers may have already learned, a couple of merry, laughing Dianas, with whom I had perhaps some of the most agreeable hours of wandering and hunting that happened to me while in Texas. My night survey of Mustang Island, the public has already been favoured with. I shall now record another adventure, which I boldly and fearlessly con *"Highlands of Ethiopia." 3 vols. London: Longman. fess, without dread of the consequences. My perspicuity of vision and my game qualities may suffer in the estimation of my readers; but many, under similar circumstances, would have been led away, deluded by a trifling ignis fatuus. It happened, while camped at Todville--my friend, Captain Tod's snug cabin, on his estate of Todland-that I one day wandered, much further than I was wont alone, in the depth of the forest. More accustomed just then to steer by chart and compass upon salt water, than by mere signs amid the trees, I lost my way; a circumstance of very common occurrence, and to which I had grown so accustomed as to feel neither surprise nor annoyance. I had a good rifle, and plenty of powder, a small supply of biscuit, and a flask of brandy; and with these accompaniments, a night in the forest was very bearable, especially if I proved lucky enough to discover a stray deer in some open glade. Evening, however, drew in, and I had no such good fortune. Fatigued and hungry, I sat down upon a log to speculate upon what was next to be done. I was in the very thick of a virgin American wood, where very likely the foot of man had never before trod. All was silence around, while darkness was gathering fast over the scene. I was in what is expressively called, in Yankee land, a fix. Could I have procured the smallest amount of animal food, the case would have been different. Still I was not discouraged; and as night fairly set in, and wrapped all nature in its mantle of gloom, I resolved on lighting a fire. For this purpose I rose; and as I gained the perpendicular, a bright flame caught my eye, burning brightly at some distance in the forest. I rubbed my eyes to make sure they had not deceived me. It was clearly a fire built by some wanderer like myself, for the purpose of cooking his or their supper, and providing warmth for the night, which, in Texas, however hot the day, is often chilly and disagreeable. I hesitated a moment. The Wacco Indians were in the neighbourhood, and in some force; but an instant's thought readily informed me that such a blazing fire was never erected by them, as the red-skins have always an eye to secresy and seclusion in all their deeds. I therefore resolved to advance, and share the bivouac of the wanderer, whoever he was. Man is a gregarious animal, and ever prefers company to solitude at least I do, and I believe I am not singular. I once more collected my traps, clutched my very excellent friend and companion, my rifle, and advanced with somewhat of circumspection towards the night camp. As I advanced, I grew each instant more cautious. I found that it was no single wanderer who could have erected such a fire. At length, after about ten minutes, I stood in full view of all the arrangements: a huge fire, built with any thing but a regard to the economical consumption of the forest, was reared in the midst of an open glade, beside a rude hut hastily formed with piles cut from the neighbouring trees, branches, and a few hides of deer and buffaloes. Beside this was a creek where I discovered a twomasted boat. Beneath the tent sat two figures whom I was about to scan curiously, when one of them, laying its hand on a rifle near at hand, and glancing menacingly in my direction, quickened my movements. I spoke. "Mary Rock!" I exclaimed; "by all that is wonderful !" |