bts had nothing to do with it. By Heaven,
Wilton, if it had been for nothing but that, I would have spent
twenty thousand pounds more before the year was over; for when one
has a mind to enrage one's father, or go to gaol, or anything of that
kind, one had better do it for a large sum at once, in a gentleman-
like way. Oh no, I have other things in my head, Wilton, that you
know nothing about."
"I will not try to press into your confidence, Sherbrooke," replied
Wilton, "though I think in some things I have shown myself deserving
of it. But I need hardly tell you, that if I can serve you, I am
always most willing to do so, and you need but command me."
"Alas! my dear Wilton," replied Lord Sherbrooke--"this is a matter
in which you can do nothing. It is like one man trying to lift Paul's
church upon his back, and another coming up and offering to help
him. If I did what was right, and according to the best prescribed
practice, I should repay your kind wishes and offers by turning round
and cutting your throat."
"Nay, nay, my dear Sherbrooke," replied Wilton, "you are in one of
your misanthropical fits, and carry it even further than ordinary.
The world is bad enough, but not so bad as to present us with many
instances of people cutting each other's throats as a reward for
offers of service."
"You are very wise, Wilton," replied Lord Sherbrooke, "but
nevertheless you will find out that at present I am right and you are
wrong. However, let us talk of something else;" and he dashed off at
once into a wild gay strain of merriment, as unaccountable as the
grave and gloomy tone with which he had entered into the
conversation.
This morning's interview formed the type of Lord Sherbrooke's conduct
during the whole time of his stay in town. Continual fluctuations,
not only in his own spirits, but in his demeanour towards Wilton
himself; evidently showed his friend that he was agitated internally
by some great grief or terrible anxiety. Indeed, from time to time,
his words suffered it to appear, though not, perhaps, in the same
manner that the words of other men would have done in similar
circumstances. The only thing in which he seemed to take pleasure was
in attending the trials of the various conspirators; and when any of
them displayed any fear or want of firmness, he found therein a vast
source of merriment, and would come home laughing to Wilton, and
telling him how the beggarly wretch had showed his pale fright at the
block and axe.
"That villain Knightly