"Ill-luck is a _bêtise_," said the great Cardinal Richelieu; and on the
long run, I fear, his eminence was right. If you could drop Dick Avenel
and Mr. Digby in the middle of Oxford-street--Dick in a fustian jacket,
Digby in a suit of superfine--Dick with five shillings in his pocket,
Digby with a thousand pounds--and if, at the end of ten years, you
looked up your two men, Dick would be on his road to fortune,
Digby--what we have seen him! Yet Digby had no vice; he did not drink,
nor gamble. What was he, then? Helpless. He had been an only son--a
spoiled child--brought up as "a gentleman;" that is, as a man who was
not expected to be able to turn his hand to any thing. He entered, as we
have seen, a very expensive regiment, wherein he found himself, at his
father's death, with £4000 and the incapacity to say "No." Not naturally
extravagant, but without an idea of the value of money--the easiest,
gentlest, best-tempered man whom example ever led astray. This part of
his career comprised a very common history--the poor man living on equal
terms with the rich. Debt; recourse to usurers; bills signed sometimes
for others, renewed at twenty per cent.; the £4000 melted like snow;
pathetic appeal to relations; relations have children of their own;
small help given grudgingly, eked out by much advice, and coupled with
conditions. Among the conditions there was a very proper and prudent
one--exchange into a less expensive regiment. Exchange effected; peace;
obscure country quarters; _ennui_, flute-playing and idleness. Mr. Digby
had no resources on a rainy day--except flute-playing; pretty girl of
inferior rank; all the officers after her; Digby smitten; pretty girl
very virtuous; Digby forms honorable intentions; excellent sentiments;
imprudent marriage. Digby falls in life; colonel's lady will not
associate with Mrs. Digby; Digby cut by his whole kith and kin; many
disagreeable circumstances in regimental life; Digby sells out; love in
a cottage; execution in ditto. Digby had been much applauded as an
amateur actor; thinks of the stage; genteel comedy--a gentlemanlike
profession. Tries in a provincial town, under another name; unhappily
succeeds; life of an actor; hand-to-mouth life; illness; chest affected;
Digby's voice becomes hoarse and feeble; not aware of it; attributes
failing success to ignorant provincial public; appears in London; is
hissed; returns to provinces; sinks into very small parts; prison;
despair; wife dies; appeal again to relations; a subscription made to
get rid of him; send him out of the country; place in
Canada--superintendent to an estate, £150 a year; pursued by ill-luck;
never before fit for business, not fit now; honest as the day, but keeps
slovenly accounts; child can not bear the winter of Canada; Digby
wrapped up in the child; return home; mysterious life for two years;
child patient, thoughtful, loving; has learned to work; manages for
father; often supports him; constitution rapidly breaking; thought of
what will become of this child--worst disease of all. Poor Digby! Never
did a base, cruel, unkind thing in his life; and here he is, walking
down the lane from Colonel Pompley's house! Now, if Digby had but
learned a little of the world's cunning, I think he would have succeeded
even with Colonel Pompley. Had he spent the £100 received from Lord
Estrange with a view to effect--had he bestowed a fitting wardrobe on
himself and his pretty Ellen; had he stopped at the last stage, taken
thence a smart chaise and pair, and presented himself at Colonel
Pompley's in a way that would not have discredited the Colonel's
connection, and then, instead of praying for home and shelter, asked the
Colonel to become guardian to his child in case of his death, I have a
strong notion that the Colonel, in spite of his avarice, would have
stretched both ends so as to take in Helen Digby. But our poor friend
had no such arts. Indeed, of the £100, he had already very little left,
for before leaving town he had committed what Sheridan considered the
extreme of extravagance--frittered away his money in paying his debts;
and as for dressing up Helen and himself--if that thought had ever
occurred to him, he would have rejected it as foolish. He would have
thought that the more he showed his poverty, the more he would be
pitied--the worst mistake a poor cousin can commit. According to
Theophrastus, the partridge of Paphlagonia has two hearts; so have most
men: it is the common mistake of the unlucky to knock at the wrong one.