silent and sequestered walks, to which the present state of his mind
induced him to betake himself, he was sure to find some strollers from
the Well, to whom he had become the object of so much solicitous
interest. Quite innocent of the knowledge that he himself possessed the
attraction which occasioned his meeting them so frequently, he began to
doubt whether the Lady Penelope and her maidens--Mr. Winterblossom and
his grey pony--the parson and his short black coat and raven-grey
pantaloons--were not either actually polygraphic copies of the same
individuals, or possessed of a celerity of motion resembling
omnipresence and ubiquity; for nowhere could he go without meeting
them, and that oftener than once a-day, in the course of his walks.
Sometimes the presence of the sweet Lycoris was intimated by the sweet
prattle in an adjacent shade; sometimes, when Tyrrel thought himself
most solitary, the parson's flute was heard snoring forth Gramachree
Molly; and if he betook himself to the river, he was pretty sure to find
his sport watched by Sir Bingo or some of his friends.

The efforts which Tyrrel made to escape from this persecution, and the
impatience of it which his manner indicated, procured him, among the
Wellers, the name of the _Misanthrope_; and, once distinguished as an
object of curiosity, he was the person most attended to, who could at
the ordinary of the day give the most accurate account of where the
Misanthrope had been, and how occupied in the course of the morning. And
so far was Tyrrel's shyness from diminishing the desire of the Wellers
for his society, that the latter feeling increased with the difficulty
of gratification,--as the angler feels the most peculiar interest when
throwing his fly for the most cunning and considerate trout in the pool.

In short, such was the interest which the excited imaginations of the
company took in the Misanthrope, that, notwithstanding the unamiable
qualities which the word expresses, there was only one of the society
who did not desire to see the specimen at their rooms, for the purpose
of examining him closely and at leisure; and the ladies were
particularly desirous to enquire whether he was actually a Misanthrope?
Whether he had been always a Misanthrope? What had induced him to become
a Misanthrope? And whether there were no means of inducing him to cease
to be a Misanthrope?

One individual only, as we have said, neither desired to see nor hear
more of the s