“Well,” he said, “nothing is of the least use under L2,500.”

I was a little staggered, but, pitying his distress of mind, went once more to my bankers’ and made the further necessary arrangements.  I borrowed the whole amount at five per cent., and placed it to the credit of this brilliant Queen’s Counsel.

The only terms I made with him on this new condition of things was that he should, out of his incoming fees, pay my clerk L500 a quarter until the whole sum was liquidated.  This he might easily have done, and this he arranged to do; but the next day he pledged the whole of his prospective income to a Jew, incurred fresh liabilities, and left me without a shadow of a chance of ever seeing a penny of my money again.  I need not say every farthing was lost, principal and interest.  I say interest, because it cost me five per cent, till the amount was paid.

His end was as romantic as his life, but it is best told in the words of my old friend Charley Colman, who never spares colour when it is necessary, and in that respect is an artist who resembles Nature.  Thus he writes:—­

“What a coward at heart was ——!  He allowed himself to be sat upon and crushed without raising a hand or voice in his defence of himself.  When he returned from America he accepted a seat in ——­ office—­in the office of the man who urged Lord ——­ to prosecute him.

“After your gift to him—­a noble gift of L3,000—­he called at my chambers, spoke in high terms of your generosity, and wished all the world to know it, so elated was he.  I was to publish it far and wide.  He went away.  In half an hour he returned, and begged me to keep the affair secret.  ‘Too late,’ said I.  ’Several gentlemen have been here, and to them I mentioned the matter, and begged them to spread it far and wide.’  His heart failed him when he thought he would be talked about.

“He was a kind-hearted fellow at times—­generous to a fault, always most abstemious; but he had a tongue, and one he did not try to control.  He used to say stinging things of people, knowing them to be untrue.

“What a life!  What a terrible fate was his!  Turned out of Parliament; made to resign his Benchership; his gown taken from him by the Benchers; driven to America by his creditors to get his living; not allowed to practise in the Supreme Court in America.  At forty-five years of age his life had foundered.  He returns to England—­for what!  Simply to find his recklessness had blasted his life, and then—?

“Sometimes, in spite of all, I feel a moisture in my eye when I think of him.  Had he been true to himself what a brilliant life was open to him!  What a practice he had!  Up to the last he told me that he turned L14,000 a year.  He worked hard, very hard, and his gains went to ——­ or to chicken-hazard!  Poor fellow!”

CHAPTER XIV.

PETER RYLAND—­THE REV.  MR. FAKER AND THE WELSH WILL.