‘One night, however, during one of our orgies—one of our high festivals, I mean—he glided in, like the ghost in “Macbeth,” and seated himself, as usual, a little back from the table, in the chair we always placed for “the spectre,” whether it chose to fill it or not. I saw by his face that he was suffering from the effects of an overdose of his insidious comforter; but nobody spoke to him, and he spoke to nobody. A few sidelong glances, and a whispered observation, that “the ghost was come,” was all the notice he drew by his appearance, and we went on with our merry carousals as before, till he startled us all by suddenly drawing in his chair, and leaning forward with his elbows on the table, and exclaiming with portentous solemnity,—“Well! it puzzles me what you can find to be so merry about. What you see in life I don’t know—I see only the blackness of darkness, and a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation!”
‘All the company simultaneously pushed up their glasses to him, and I set them before him in a semicircle, and, tenderly patting him on the back, bid him drink, and he would soon see as bright a prospect as any of us; but he pushed them back, muttering,—
‘“Take them away! I won’t taste it, I tell you. I won’t—I won’t!” So I handed them down again to the owners; but I saw that he followed them with a glare of hungry regret as they departed. Then he clasped his hands before his eyes to shut out the sight, and two minutes after lifted his head again, and said, in a hoarse but vehement whisper,—
‘“And yet I must! Huntingdon, get me a glass!”
‘“Take the bottle, man!” said I, thrusting the brandy-bottle into his hand—but stop, I’m telling too much,’ muttered the narrator, startled at the look I turned upon him. ‘But no matter,’ he recklessly added, and thus continued his relation: ‘In his desperate eagerness, he seized the bottle and sucked away, till he suddenly dropped from his chair, disappearing under the table amid a tempest of applause. The consequence of this imprudence was something like an apoplectic fit, followed by a rather severe brain fever—’
‘And what did you think of yourself, sir?’ said I, quickly.
‘Of course, I was very penitent,’ he replied. ‘I went to see him once or twice—nay, twice or thrice—or by’r lady, some four times—and when he got better, I tenderly brought him back to the fold.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I restored him to the bosom of the club, and compassionating the feebleness of his health and extreme lowness of his spirits, I recommended him to “take a little wine for his stomach’s sake,” and, when he was sufficiently re-established, to embrace the media-via, ni-jamais-ni-toujours plan—not to kill himself like a fool, and not to abstain like a ninny—in a word, to enjoy himself like a rational creature, and do as I did; for, don’t think, Helen, that I’m a tippler; I’m nothing at all of the kind, and never was, and never shall be. I value my comfort far too much. I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one-half his days and mad the other; besides, I like to enjoy my life at all sides and ends, which cannot be done by one that suffers himself to be the slave of a single propensity—and, moreover, drinking spoils one’s good looks,’ he concluded, with a most conceited smile that ought to have provoked me more than it did.
‘And did Lord Lowborough profit by your advice?’ I asked.
‘Why, yes, in a manner. For a while he managed very well; indeed, he was a model of moderation and prudence—something too much so for the tastes of our wild community; but, somehow, Lowborough had not the gift of moderation: if he stumbled a little to one side, he must go down before he could right himself: if he overshot the mark one night, the effects of it rendered him so miserable the next day that he must repeat the offence to mend it; and so on from day to day, till his clamorous conscience brought him to a stand. And then, in his sober moments, he so bothered his friends with his remorse, and his terrors and woes, that they were obliged, in self-defence, to get him to drown his sorrows in wine, or any more potent beverage that came to hand; and when his first scruples of conscience were overcome, he would need no more persuading, he would often grow desperate, and be as great a blackguard as any of them could desire—but only to lament his own unutterable wickedness and degradation the more when the fit was over.
‘At last, one day when he and I were alone together, after pondering awhile in one of his gloomy, abstracted moods, with his arms folded and his head sunk on his breast, he suddenly woke up, and vehemently grasping my arm, said,—
‘“Huntingdon, this won’t do! I’m resolved to have done with it.”
‘“What, are you going to shoot yourself?” said I.
‘“No; I’m going to reform.”
‘“Oh, that’s nothing new! You’ve been going to reform these twelve months and more.”
‘“Yes, but you wouldn’t let me; and I was such a fool I couldn’t live without you. But now I see what it is that keeps me back, and what’s wanted to save me; and I’d compass sea and land to get it—only I’m afraid there’s no chance.” And he sighed as if his heart would break.
‘“What is it, Lowborough?” said I, thinking he was fairly cracked at last.
‘“A wife,” he answered; “for I can’t live alone, because my own mind distracts me, and I can’t live with you, because you take the devil’s part against me.”
‘“Who—I?”
‘“Yes—all of you do—and you more than any of them, you know. But if I could get a wife, with fortune enough to pay off my debts and set me straight in the world—”
‘“To be sure,” said I.
‘“And sweetness and goodness enough,” he continued, “to make home tolerable, and to reconcile me to myself, I think I should do yet. I shall never be in love again, that’s certain; but perhaps that would be no great matter, it would enable me to choose with my eyes open—and I should make a good husband in spite of it; but could any one be in love with me?—that’s the question. With your good looks and powers of fascination” (he was pleased to say), “I might hope; but as it is, Huntingdon, do you think anybody would take me—ruined and wretched as I am?”
‘“Yes, certainly.”
‘“Who?”
‘“Why, any neglected old maid, fast sinking in despair, would be delighted to—”
‘“No, no,” said he—“it must be somebody that I can love.”
‘“Why, you just said you never could be in love again!”
‘“Well, love is not the word—but somebody that I can like. I’ll search all England through, at all events!” he cried, with a sudden burst of hope, or desperation. “Succeed or fail, it will be better than rushing headlong to destruction at that d-d club: so farewell to it and you. Whenever I meet you on honest ground or under a Christian roof, I shall be glad to see you; but never more shall you entice me to that devil’s den!”
‘This was shameful language, but I shook hands with him, and we parted. He kept his word; and from that time forward he has been a pattern of propriety, as far as I can tell; but till lately I have not had very much to do with him. He occasionally sought my company, but as frequently shrunk from it, fearing lest I should wile him back to destruction, and I found his not very entertaining, especially as he sometimes attempted to awaken my conscience and draw me from the perdition he considered himself to have escaped; but when I did happen to meet him, I seldom failed to ask after the progress of his matrimonial efforts and researches,