and triumphant glance, the curious difference between his lawful and unlawful gains; there, was every overcharge recorded, every matter of extortion systematically ranged, that he might take all the tenants in their turn; there, were filed the receipts of many honest men, whom the guardians and Sir John had long believed to be greatly in arrear; there, was recorded at length the catalogue of dues from tradesmen; there, the list of bribes for the custom of the Hall.  It would amply authorize Sir John in appropriating the whole store; and Jennings thought of this with terror.  Every thing was now obviously lost, lost!  Oh, sickening little word, all lost! all he had ever lived for—­all which had made him live the life he did—­all which made him fear to die.  “Fear to die—­ha! who said that?  I will not fear to die; yes, there is one escape left, I will hazard the blind leap; this misery shall have an end—­this sleepless, haunted, cheated, hated wretch shall live no longer—­ha! ha! ha! ha!  I’ll do it!  I’ll do it!”

Then did that wretched man strive in vain to kill himself, for his hour was not yet come.  His first idea was laudanum—­that only mean of any thing like rest to him for many weeks; and pouring out all he had, a little phial, nearly half a wine-glass full, he quickly drank it off:  no use—­no use; the agitation of his mind was too intense, and the habit of a continually increasing dose had made him proof against the poison; it would not even lull him, but seemed to stretch and rack his nerves, exciting him to deeds of bloody daring.  Should he rush out, like a Malay running a muck, with a carving-knife in each hand, and kill right and left:—­vengeance! vengeance! on Jonathan Floyd, and John Vincent?  No, no; for some of them at last would overcome him, think him mad, and, O terror!—­his doom for life, without the means of death, would be solitary confinement.  “Stay! with this knife in my hand—­means of death—­yes, it shall be so.”  And he hurriedly drew the knife across his throat; no use, nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from cutting—­he dared not cut again; a little bloody scratch was all.

But the heart, the heart—­that should be easier!  And the miscreant, not quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture.  Not yet, Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows.  “Ha! hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of that before?”

He mounted on a chair with a gimlet in his hand, and screwed it tightly into the wainscotting as high as he could reach; then he took a cord from the sacking of his bed, secured it to the gimlet, made a noose, put his head in, kicked the chair away—­and swung by his wounded neck; in vain, all in vain; as he struggled in the agonies of self-protecting nature, the handle of the gimlet came away, and he fell heavily to the ground.

“Bless us!” said Sarah to one of the house-maids, as they were arranging their curl-papers to go to bed:  “what can that noise be in Mr. Jennings’s room? his tall chest of drawers has fallen, I shouldn’t wonder:  it was always unsafe to my mind.  Listen, Jenny, will you?”