n this note,
which had been dropped by "accident" from the captain's pocket, the
superscription was scarcely dry,--in the very act of catching, I had
blotted the words! This, of course, was no affair of mine; but it
evinced deception,--and deception at certain moments becomes a dangerous
injury. There are times when the mind feels deceit to be an outrage. The
stormy passions of the fury-driven mob, reckless and headstrong, show
this; and the most terrible moment in all political convulsions is when
the people feel, or even suspect, that they have been tricked. My frame
of mind was exactly in that critical stage. A minute before, I was
ready to yield any obedience, tender any service; and now, of a
sudden,--without the slightest real cause, or from anything which could
in the remotest way affect me,--I had become a rebel. Let the reader
forgive the somewhat tedious analysis of a motive, since it comes from
one who has long studied the science of moral chemistry, and made most
of his experiments--as the rule directs--in "ignoble bodies."

My whole resolve was changed: I would not deliver the note. Not that I
had any precise idea wherefore, or that I had the least conception what
other course I should adopt; I was a true disciple of revolt: I rebelled
for very rebellion's sake.

Betty Cobbe's was more than usually brilliant on that evening. A
race, which was to come off at Kingstown the next day, had attracted a
numerous company, in the various walks of horse-boys, bill-carriers, and
pickpockets, all of whom hoped to find a ready harvest on the morrow.
The conversation was, therefore, entirely of a sporting character.
Anecdotes of the turf and the ring went round, and in the many curious
devices of roguery and fraud might be read the prevailing taste of
that select company. Combinations were also formed to raise the rate of
payment, and many ingenious suggestions thrown out about turning cattle
loose, slacking girths, stealing curb-chains, and so on, from that
antagonistic part of the public who preferred holding their horses
themselves than intrusting them to the profession.

The race itself, too, engrossed a great share of interest; and a certain
Fergusson was talked of with all the devotedness and affection of a dear
friend. Nor, as I afterwards learned, was the admiration a merely blind
one, as he was a most cunning adept in all the wily stratagems by which
such men correct the wilful ways of Fortune.

How my compa