Once able to go about again, Patrick cheered up; but it was plain that there was one point on which he would not be ruled.  He would not stay in Dublin, under any inducement whatever; and he would go to London.  I wrote very plainly to him about the risk he was running,—­even describing the desolate condition of the unsuccessful literary adventurer in the dreary peopled wilderness, in which the friendless may lie down and die alone, as the starved animal lies down and perishes in the ravine in the desert.  I showed him how impossible it was for me or anybody to help him, except with a little money, till he had shown what he could do; and I entreated him to wait two years,—­one year,—­six months, before rushing on such a fate.  Here, and here alone, he was self-willed.  At first he explained to me that he had one piece of employment to rely on.  He was to be the London correspondent of the Repeal organ in Dublin,—­the “Nation” newspaper.  The pay was next to nothing.  He could not live, ever so frugally, on four times the amount:  but it was an engagement; and it would enable him to serve his country.  So, as there was nothing else to be done, Mr. H. started him for London, with just money enough to carry him there.  Once there, he was sure he should do very well.

I doubted this; and he was met, at the address he gave, (at an Irish greengrocer’s, the only person he knew in London,) by an order for money enough to carry him over two or three weeks,—­money given by two or three friends to whom I ventured to open the case.  I have seldom read a happier letter than Patrick’s first from London; but it was not even then, nor for some time after, that he told me the main reason of his horror at remaining in Dublin.

He had hoped to support himself as a tutor while studying and practising for the literary profession; and he had been engaged to teach the children of a rich citizen,—­not only the boys, but the daughter.  He, an engaging youth of three-and-twenty, with blue eyes and golden hair, an innocent and noble expression of countenance, an open heart, a glowing imagination, and an eloquent tongue, was set to teach Latin and literary composition to a pretty, warm-hearted, romantic girl of twenty; and when they were in love and engaged, the father considered himself the victim of the basest treachery that ever man suffered under.  In vain the young people pleaded for leave to love and wait till Patrick could provide a home for his wife.  They asked no favor but to be let alone.  Patrick’s family was as good as hers; and he had the education and manners of a gentleman, without any objectionable habits or tastes, but with every possible desire to win an honorable home for his beloved.  I am not sure, but I think there was a moment when they thought of eloping some day, if nothing but the paternal displeasure intervened between them and happiness; but it was not yet time for this.  There was much to be done first.  What the father did first was to turn Patrick